Didn't want to be your ghost

1. Alan Turing has been pardoned. Better if it had been in his lifetime, but still.

2. My diagnosis of Raynaud's is official. I didn't go looking for it; the dermatologist this morning informed me that the problem with my feet is chilblains, asked me a question about my colitis and a question about the color of my hands in winter, felt their temperature after five minutes' walk through cold rain, and that was that. There's not much to do about it medically, as I'd thought; I'm not going to start taking vasodilators in winter. (I am going to invest in serious fucking socks.) Now I get to deal with a problem with my feet that I thought had gone out with central heating.

3. It is my grandfather's yahrzeit. Not by the Hebrew calendar, which would have been December 1st this year; but he died on the morning of the 24th in 2011, so my mother and I lit the candle this evening. I was in Lexington, decorating my family's tree for Wednesday. (derspatchel and I do not have a tree of our own this year, partly because our house is still full of boxes, partly because it turns out that our driveway shrub disappears under a snowfall. It's become visible with the rain in the last couple of days, but I am still sad that we didn't at least run some rope lights around it. It would have been unequaled in pathos since A Charlie Brown Christmas.) It's a completely different tree from last year, but they always are. The star of David of heavy amber pressed glass—my grandparents' gift, my first ornament—still goes on the tree first.

I have yet another chip in my left front tooth. I spent most of today running around in the rain with Rob, buying candied fruit peel for my mother and books for a variety of people. I've had very little time to myself in some ways recently (and now we're heading into more holidays), but it was a good solstice this weekend; the sun came back. I didn't go away.

And we'll all go together to the hills white with snow

This time last year, I was in my parents' house in Lexington, watching Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (1977) with derspatchel. My brother and his wife still lived in Belmont and were not yet parents. Tonight, we have just finished wrapping the present for our niece and placing it beneath our tiny potted bonsai of a Christmas tree (we've acquired one since my last post—my mother left it on our doorstep with a note reading "Noyes Taaffe #2," which is not quite as good as "Please look after this bear," but I still like it) along with the other gifts we will give tomorrow. My parents are holding their traditional open house with eggnog; there will be plum pudding after dinner, even if this year I'll only help steam it. Earlier this evening we celebrated with rushthatspeaks, gaudior and parents, and nineweaving. We make new traditions. So things grow.