December, 2001

Wow. Another couple of months have passed and I've got to write this thing again.

It's finally getting cold here in Oklahoma and we even had our first snowfall. The snow was too dry for snowballs and a snowman though. Kind of a bummer.

Let's see...what do I usually talk about this quarter? Oh, yeah, Halloween. Duncan was a vampire this year complete with Dracula cape and blue jeans! Yeah, we went all out.

Soccer this year went really well. He played at the Ione YWCA again and got a really good coach. All of the kids on the team played so well together the parents decided to keep them together in the Spring. Duncan had even improved from the first year he played. He actually got in the mix more and went after the ball and scored three goals during the season.

Duncan is now six years old. We took him and four of his friends to see Harry Potter a week before his birthday. Considering the movie is over two and a half hours long I thought the five potty breaks and one 'must- sit-on-the-lap-of-an-adult-moment' during the big scene with Fluffy the three-headed dog weren't too bad. They all seemed to like it and Duncan was thrilled to see the movie based on the book he loves.

The day of his birthday we had a family thing, opened presents and ate a birthday cake decorated with, you guessed it, Harry Potter paraphernalia. He made out like a bandit as always and I'm very jealous that he now has a keen and snuggly Superman robe.

Thanksgiving went off without a hitch. We did the usual dinner at my mom's house. Mike and I also got to see the new Coen brothers movie, The Man Who Wasn't There (very noir and good) that weekend. That's probably the only adult movie we've been to see this quarter. Not that we haven't wanted to see others but we never could seem to find the time.

On the kid movie front, we also saw Monsters, Inc. which I highly recommend. It was very funny and worth seeing.

Mike's got us looking for houses now that the interest rates are so low. We're taking it slow and have found a realtor who isn't high pressure. Whenever she finds potential houses she e-mails them to Mike, we look over the information, do a drive by look-see and then get back to her if we want to look inside.

So far I've only found one that I wanted to bid on and it ended up being under contract but the gooby realtor who is listing that house never updated the information. We'll find something eventually I'm sure. There'll be even more houses on the market come Spring which gives us more time to add to the down payment stash.

Mike's gotten involved with a group of fans from several clubs that want to start another SF convention in OKC. He's on the steering committee for the con and may be doing programming although he's more than willing to give that job up to someone who wants it. I am going to be a flunky for a friend who is running registration. No responsibility for me, no sirree bob.

My review writing is suffering thanks to visiting Open Houses on Sundays so it's another wimpy installment of Creeping Reviews.

Okay, I think that's about it for this quarter. Things have been crazy these past couple of months. I'm mostly finished with Christmas shopping but I still have a few major gifts to pick up and I'm starting to panic. I know, I know, Christmas is far away but I like being done EARLY. Okay, off to escape and read some smutty Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan fiction. See you in three!

Tamara J. Hodge
December, 2001