I was in Pennsylvania this weekend, of course. Nothing interesting happens on the weekends I stay home, so I never write about them.

I went shopping on the way down Saturday. I think I have now filled my quota of in-person holiday shopping for the next three years. I did eventually find everything I needed, but I passed up a couple of stores and a couple of things I wanted due to the lines. People weren't pushy and nasty, but there were just so darned many of them.

After I got down there, we gamed. It was a blended group of New Jersey people I am used to playing with, and Pennsylvania people I haven't played with very often. The variety was enjoyable. Somehow I ended up being the one doing the talking, though. This is not a good thing. While my character may have had the highest Charisma and Diplomacy scores, I lack both of those. I also lack the ability to engage in conversation with strangers - even, apparently, when it's my best friend pretending to be a series of strangers. I'm sure the other players were even more frustrated with it than I was, but, well, they volunteered me.

Sunday morning was very pretty; the snow was falling and C had turned on the fireplace. By the time A and I left for our hair appointment, it had switched over to freezing rain and wasn't so pretty any more. At the salon, the first thing they did was cut off my ponytail at about shoulder length, so I could donate it. Then they went on to the shampoo and cut and style. It's now - well, it's hard to say what length it is. Soaking wet, it's about halfway between shoulder and chin length, a little longer in the back. Dry, it's wavy enough that it pulls up considerably. And it's waving a little more each day; I'll be interested to see what it looks like a week from now. Last time my hair was this short, it was still very straight. It's changed a lot over the last nearly ten years.

After we went home, A and demongrey managed to hook me on Firefly. For those who don't know, Firefly was a TV show by the creator of Buffy. However, this show is without the supernatural silliness and the cheerleader-ness. I gather that it was canceled after only one season. It's a shame that something I actually could imagine bothering to watch gets canceled, while so-called reality TV continues. We only watched about half the episodes while I was there, so I'm going to have to go back and make them show me the rest of it.

It was pretty slippery all day, and I didn't really feel like driving home - and from what I heard, it was icier in NJ than in PA. I had talked to my boss and Ginny Friday night, and they had told me to just call in and take the extra day if the weather was too bad. I still had four days of vacation that I lose at the end of the year, so there was not any guilt on my end when I called around eight to tell Ginny I wouldn't be back until Tuesday.

Monday was a lazy kind of day. A and I had been up talking until about 3 AM, and so neither of us got up very early. When we did, we found that demongrey had also called out of work. We watched one more episode of Firefly while having lunch, then went out to run errands. We mailed my hair to Locks of Love, and mailed a package of things A had been collecting from all of us for leftsphenoid. Then we went searching for a Christmas tree that would fit their apartment - they have different furniture than last year, and the old tree is just too big. At the second Target we got one that was acceptable. A and I got it set up and put the lights on, and demongrey picked up dinner from Outback. Most of the decorations didn't go on the tree yet, because A and C have a lot of beautiful and breakable ornaments, and they don't know what their cats will do with the tree. Still, it looked quite pretty. C was reading his new gaming book, demongreyfell asleep, and A and I looked at the tree and listened to some of my favorite Christmas music. It finally put me into the Christmas spirit. I'm ready for the holidays now, I feel the beauty of the season. It was peaceful and quiet and happy. It was kind of a shame to drive back up here and plunge back in to the mayhem of life.