Alex came home on the 19th. I don’t get on the computer much when he’s here. We didn’t do much other than enjoy being together. Of course, we did watch a lot of movies and a TV series or two.

Baahubali was a two-part movie (about 2 1/2 hours each). It’s an Indian mythic story and was a lot of fun to watch.

Hausu (House) was, as IMDB put it, “the most bizarre Haunted House movie I’ve ever seen.”

Andhadhun is another Indian movie. It about a “blind” pianist who sees something he shouldn’t. Good mystery.

Matrix Resurrections was good, but I really need to rewatch the first movie and watch the middle two. I knew what was going on, but I think knowing the whole story would be clearer.

Don’t Look Up Oh, my goodness! This was over the top and full of hysterically funny moments. But OH! OH! OH! This has a very real, very serious message.

The Outsider is an eight-part miniseries based on a Stephen King novel. It’s not what I would call scary, but it’s definitely tension filled. Very definitely about the pain of loss and grief, and not for the squeamish. Alex and I watched this an episode or two a night after Iqbal went to bed. He’s not particularly squeamish, but it didn’t appeal to him.

We also watched the final episodes of the current first season of the Wheel of Time series on Prime. We, all three of us, read all 14 of the books, so it’s interesting to see and discuss the changes the series makes and how they manage to keep the story (if not the details) true to the books… how some changes are actually necessary in a different medium to keep the story true to its origins.

I talked to Alex today and think I may write about the movies and TV shows I watch. If I do that, I may actually remember them more than a few weeks later. He gave me three questions to focus me on topic. I don’t know how well I’ll manage to do this given my distractibility, but I want to try. I’ll probably do better with movies than with TV shows. I’m not particularly good a binge-watching. We watched a good series last year, but I never did get to the final three episodes after Alex left.

It wouldn’t hurt my brain to write a bit about the books I read, too.

Although I really like to follow the Timbers’ soccer games, I’m not a major soccer fan. It was very nice to have a whole week without any soccer. Iqbal watches whatever he can find and these days there’s plenty from Mexico (a lot), South America (big games). and Europe (a lot), and their main season starts at the end of or right after ours. Alex is less interested than I am, plus he had movies, so no soccer while he was here.

Alex also cooked for us one day. He made Thai pumpkin soup. Oh, my gosh! I honestly didn’t think I’d like it since I don’t like pumpkin anything all that much. I should say “didn’t” because I really, really liked this soup. It is something I will try to make myself. He says it’s really simple. He googled the recipe and more or less followed what he found. (He says, except for baking, recipes are just inspiration. Takes after his mother there, but I usually follow the recipe almost exactly the first time I make something.)

He went to visit friends in Portland one day. We spent the afternoon and evening of Christmas day at my sister’s dinner. Other than that and the movies, we mostly just lazed around and talked.

After about six years (plus or minus) we ended up with a white Christmas night. By late Sunday/Monday morning we had about five inches. And it’s been cold. This made us all nervous because Alex had to fly out at midnight Monday night/Tuesday morning. From dinnertime to 8:30 this weighed on all of us. We decided to leave then. In good weather it takes almost 90 minutes to get to PDX (Portland airport).

Now, I always pray for good travel when anyone has to go somewhere. When I drive up to Portland, I always get a sense of “I am with you.” I always interpret this to mean “Whatever happens, I am with you” and that’s fine. Monday night, however, the sense was “Everything will be fine, no problems.” Alex drove to PDX. It snowed lightly all the way, but except for the first few miles of 205, roads were clear. Even the snowy stretch didn’t bother Alex. (He lives in Michigan now.) He was concerned about my drive home. He knows I don’t like to drive, especially at night in bad weather. However, that sense of no problems was so strong that I was not nervous. The southbound side of 205 was clear all the way and traffic was light enough that, sticking to the speed limit or slightly under, we were alone on the road most of the time. That awareness of being safe as I drove was so strong that it created a joy within me. If you know how much I hate to drive, you know what a miracle that is! I may no longer be a Fundamentalist, but I definitely have not lost my faith. ☺

I wish I’d gone back out when we got home and taken some pictures. The snow was so pretty in the front maple tree. Alas, it melted!

Tuesday, I spent the afternoon catching up reading blog posts. Even with family, including Alex and Iqbal, peopling takes a lot out of me. The difference between extrovert and introverts has nothing to do with liking or not liking people. It’s energy. Extroverts get energy from people, even crowds. Introverts lose energy. The more people, the more energy lost. Introverts generally need more alone time than extroverts. Since I get to see him only this one week at Christmastime, * I didn’t get much alone time. I was exhausted.

Tuesday evening, I made kaleidoscope designs. I just took an image (watercolor animals and trees) and played with it a bit–mostly deleting background and altering colors. Then I ran it through the kaleidoscope filter every 3.6 degrees to get 100 designs. Some of these designs I think will make good embroidery and/or art quilting designs. But there are so many of them. I may just give them away on a free graphics site.

Anyway, I ran all this batch of designs through the relief light filter three times. I don’t know how a 3D printer works (and probably can’t afford one in any case), but some of these designs would look so good in real 3D. I’d turn them into beads and buttons and other stitch-on items for art and crazy quilts.

I love the butterflies here. There were no butterflies in the image. If there had been, they’d be no bigger than the dot above each butterfly here, if that.

Today (Wednesday) I have done three loads of laundry, watered plants, and written this. Not that much, but better than nothing. I think of how much I used to get done in a day, but that’s an old whine to go along with “It couldn’t have been that many years ago!”

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*He’s moving to Missouri in May/June. We’re hoping that will help (more direct flights), but stupid covid is also a factor.

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[Why does this unwanted grammar correction program on Edge tell me maybe I should change “it’s” to “its” (I shouldn’t), but totally ignore the “mw” that should be “me” or the “I’s” that should be “I’d”?]