So, readers, if you're out there; Merry Christmas... Although I don't wish to discredit or dismiss whatever other feelings or traditions you may have about the season, by any means. I am up North a bit, in country much closer to the home I once new, for Christmas. I am staying with my boyfriend's family. I imagine they will forgive me for calling them simple country folk, in a way that does not necessarily mean stupid. They offer me good food, but not fancy, and pleasant treats, and I spent the morning this morning playing euchre and then poker with them. I lost the bets (no-one was really in for money anyway) but like to think I won some respect and hopefully a good first impression.
A few days past, Robby and I and our group of internet friends exchanged presents in a Skype call (since they are quite far away most of the time, some more than others). Robby received many interesting presents, mostly toys. Among them was a copy of the Anhk-Morpork board game. More specifically, it was the copy once owned by Spoony, signed and dedicated to him by name. He was elated. We played it today, and it was great fun, especially the novelty of recognizing the characters from the books and explaining to him who Mrs. Cake was, and other such magnificent tidbits of knowledge. From the beginning, he thought I was playing as Commander Vimes, one of my favorite Discworld characters, because I said from the start that I really liked the character I was playing as. Then he used Mrs. Cake, which allowed him to look at all but one of the unused characters, and saw that I was not Vimes. I was, in fact, Lord Vetinari, who is another of my favorite characters. He, on the other hand, was playing as the Dragon King of Arms. In the end, he won, after gaily and playfully spreading chaos across the city, and causing the people to long for the slightly more stable days when they had a True King. Given Vimes's canonical thoughts on the matter, it would have been a very appropriate and poignant match, I think, if I had been Vimes, and he and the body attempting to reinstate monarchy had been facing off over the city. I look forward to thoroughly enjoying many more games of it in the future, and recommend it to any Discworld fans out there.
The snow outside is deep, the roads winding. It took us a nearly five hour long road trip to get here. Robby and I are sharing a room upstairs, as opposed to in the basement where we thought we would be staying, but it's comfortable enough - for me at least; Robby felt the bed was too small for him to properly spread his body out, and was too warm last night. It was pleasant cuddling up with him, though.
I look forward with excitement to seeing these people open the presents I brought for them, and finding out whether there will be anything for me to unwrap in my turn. Unfortunately I didn't have much of that nature at our internet friend present exchange. The others didn't feel they knew me well enough yet to buy for me and the only physical thing I got was a pig-shaped piece of soap. However, I did recieve non-physical gifts. Two friends sent me video games on Steam (three if you count Robby himself, who amusingly forgot to buy me any Christmas present until just a couple days before we left for his grandparents' house), and one sent me two albums of music my Jami Sieber, after asking me if there were any albums I wanted. They have my happy and quiet thanks.
Also, I do have a computer working again at home. It cost over seven times what my old one cost, and doesn't work as well. But thankfully it doesn't suffer from Cyclical Redundancy Check problems, which is at least something. I'm not sure yet whether I want to bother bringing it back in for an exchange within its thirty day warranty period... After all, I wasn't expecting to get a better deal than the computer I had before, old though it was. Still, though, the difference is rather discouraging. At least I can do art with it. My Chickensmoothie art shop is doing well, and I've received and completed five commissions since it started up again a couple of weeks ago. I also drew some artwork to give to my internet friends as gifts, both traditional and digital in form. I believe both pieces were thoroughly enjoyed by their recipients.
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