holidays and things

i'm not entirely sure that it's actually winter. the inch or whatever of snow from a while ago is but a dim, frosty memory. and all the snow i had to deal with during my business trip to ohio was, well, in ohio. so it doesn't count. but i'm not really complaining. i took a nice little walk up to the gas station up the hill from my house yesterday, in search of some coca-cola to help me deal with going to bed at 7 am on new years day. on the way back, i took some random shortcuts through my neighborhood and ended up at some tiny little park with a basketball hoop and some grass and the ingenious name of "parkside park." and a couple of empty 40's. but whatever. there are all these little weird greenbelts running through this town. very odd.

christmas was a good time. my dad and uncle and sister came out to visit. it didn't rain too much while they were here, i don't think. christmas dinner was pretty excellent - my dad baked a huge turkey in my oven, and my sister made some excellent apple pie. and i got to take my sister out drinking, now that she's 21. so we rocked it at club element downtown.

new years was pretty awesome. i'd been planning to either drive up to vancouver to see my friend chloe dj some kind of party, or to see tipper play here in seattle, but my friend kevin had a last-minute plan to throw a party at his house. the house party sounded much more my speed, especially given last year's craziness at the w hotel, with upwards of 20-minute waits at the bar and waaaay too many people. so i took the bottle of cachaça that my dad brought me from rio and a bunch of limes over to kevin's house, and didn't make it past the kitchen for a good hour or two. this was due to two reasons: 1) i was mixing caipirinhas for anyone who wanted one, and that turned out to be a rather involved process to slice up a bunch of limes and mash 'em up with some sugar before pouring in the cachaça; and 2) i got into a conversation with my friend andy and this girl, katina, about some movie involving people at concerts all freaking out about the bands they were seeing, and katina and i both had the same reaction, namely, to say that reminded us of the tmbg documentary, "gigantic." a couple of caipirinhas and many hours later found us taking a nice little walk through the marshland in the seattle arboretum.

today we had the day off of work, but i managed to get some work done from home, only after having lunch with my friend katie at pike place market, getting a tour of her coast guard boat where she lives, and making plans for the weekend with katina (and learning that she's teaching cryptography to 7th graders!).

oh, and here's another zen parable, of sorts, from this neat little book i'm reading called buddhism plain and simple: (click "view full post" below to see it)

The situation we always live in is like that of the wise Chinese farmer whose horse ran off. When his neighbor came to console him the farmer said, "Who know's what's good or bad?"
When his horse returned the next day with a herd of horses following her, the foolish neighbor came to congratulate him on his good fortune. "Who knows what's good or bad?" said the farmer.
Then, when the farmer's son broke his leg trying to ride one of the new horses, the foolish neighbor came to console him again. "Who knows what's good or bad?" said the farmer.
When the army passed through, conscripting men for war, they passed over the farmer's son because of his broken leg. When the foolish man came to congratulate the farmer that his son would be spared, again the farmer said, "Who knows what's good or bad?"
When do we expect the story to end?