No excuses really except that I've been busy and stressed which has left me tired and empty of words. What to write, when all I thought about this past week when I had a minute or two, was curling up in bed for a snooze. A couple of mini-projects had me turning in after midnight (WAY past my usual bedtime of 11pm - don't laugh!) and struggling to wake up at 8am.

Sigh...the things I do for a laptop and a holiday.

Thanksgiving came and went, and we celebrated it yesterday with gastronomic pomp. I could shoot myself for not charging my digital camera (at times like that, I miss the old days of film!). We had quite a big crowd (40 hungry guests) last night to celebrate the start of the holidays; Thanksgiving for us being a good excuse to party. But it was also a time to celebrate good friends and pray for our loved ones near and far.

Dinner was a lavish East West spread of homemade goodies. I made the turkey and mushroom gravy, cranberry sauce, a pumpkin lasagne (thanks Ems!) and roasted potatoes, while Mom and Dad whipped up chicken sambal, Eurasian chap chye, Eurasian pickle, Waldorf walad, Australian ham, oxtail stew. And 4 decadent desserts - chocolate blacmange, English trifle, pumpkin creme brulee and carrot cake. I guess a sign that the party was a hit, was the near lack of leftovers.

Christmas is going to be a quite affair for my family this year. I'm just looking forward to winding down to the new year. And hopefully hugging my new G4 laptop then.

What is it with these Santarinas? Where does she figure in the whole Santa myth? Lover? Wife? Daughter, granddaughter or niece? My guess is she's just some inane marketing excuse to pander to the testosterone crowd.

Everytime I see one hovering around the store Santa, I cringe. Doesn't someone realise the image they present? A young, usually sexy girl with a too short skirt, skipping around an almost ancient white-bearded dude. What's wrong with bringing on Mrs Claus or the elves that work in Santa's workshop? Ahh...I know. Not sexy enough.

1. The right to read anything, anytime, anywhere
2. The right to be left alone when reading
3. The right to not defend your tastes
4. The right to re-read and re-read and re-read
5. The right to spend an insane amount of money at a bookshop or book fair, no questions asked.
6. The right to buy books even when there's a stack of unread books at home
7. The right to read more than one book at a time
8. The right to stop reading a book if you lose interest
9. The right to to get upset if you lose a book
10. The right to not lend a book to someone you know is capable of breaking its spine, among other heinous crimes.

I found an existing one over at Daniel Pennac's Reader's Bill of Rights via a link from Iliana's. While there are some important ones there, I don't think it's complete. So this is my revised list. Please let me know what else you think should be added.

I've got 2 major goals now:
1. Saving up for a new G4 Powerbook and
2. Saving BIG time for that trip to Italy in 2006.

Goal 1: While I can buy the powerbook now, I'm waiting to see if Apple will have special promotions with that laptop and iPod. Particularly so for Christmas. But in the meantime, I'm dreaming about all the great stuff I can buy to add to that silver monster.

Goal 2: I know I've been talking and writing about making the trip this year, but I didn't plan it well. Nor did I have enough vacation days to take. Now I've an old friend who's keen to put up with me for 2 weeks in August 2006 on a whirlwind tour of North Italy. I'm tentatively planning for a two-week trip that includes Rome and the Vatican City (I know 1 week here is not enough), Florence (at least 4 nights for the Uffizi Gallery), Venice and Siena (bella Tuscany!). If I had a month's vacation available and $10,000 to spend, I'd tour the whole country...and probably never come back!

I don't know why but Italy has always had a strong pull on my heart. More than any other country. It's like a pilgrimage I have to make - only I'm not targetting the holy places (except for the Vatican). For now... All roads lead to Rome!

Lady Night rises every sunset. Cloaked in stars, she moves the moon across the heavens till her brother Sun awakes to race his golden chariot.

For the last few days, I've just been vegging, chilling, relaxing...basically doing absolutely nothing. Then Janey and Iliana both dropped comments, wanting to see illustrations. Janey even suggested drawing the couch I was vegging on. LOL!

Ok. Here's something then.

My fingers itched and I drew...my bed. Not exactly the couch, but it's the one thing I see as I look directly across from my laptop. I love this bed. Its got 4 pillows - the back two are somewhere between hard and soft for support while the first two are filled with down and feathers. The body pillow is a perfect cuddle, and that black cushion is usually on my desk chair but I threw it there for now.

Rendered in Pilot G-2 and coloured pencils with some color adjustments in Photoshop.

Day two of a 6-day break. Blogging, surfing, writing, doodling, watching TV, reading, dreaming...

Now if I were living in the US, I'd be doing some major damage to my credit card today at Pennyworth Books - where you can buy books for ONLY US$5!!! While they are not the latest bestsellers or form the Top 20 of any list, there are gems here aplenty especially some odd titles under Science-Ficition and Fantasy. Am waiting to hear from them if they ship overseas.

Thanks to BookGirl for the link.