yuletide

The first night of Hanukkah was actually Thursday (I know some non-Jews tend to get confused about our holiday dates), but owing to evening online engagements and the consequent hurried dinners, we've postponed our celebratory meal until tonight, Saturday.

One of those engagements was the annual Brocelïande wintertide concert, usually a toasty warm event in the back room of a metaphysical/spiritual bookshop in Mountain View. The bookshop still sold the tickets, but this year it was virtual and we watched it on an ipad in our living room. We couldn't see our fellow audience members until the feed was switched at the end, but the band could see (though not hear) us so we applauded as usual. Unfortunately the video dropped out occasionally and the sound stuttered (which could have been our wifi), and watching them on a small screen felt more like listening to a recording than attending a concert, and we already have all the songs they played on their recordings.

I had more fun this morning with another Tolkien Society pub quiz, because they've got an online platform perfectly suited to having a hundred people take a multiple-choice question at once without interfering with each other. But the presence of some movie questions salted in, without being set off in an "adaptations" category, made me wonder if this was the Tolkien Society or the Jackson Society. This was followed, since it was Yulemoot and not just the quiz, with some members singing folk songs, which was OK but the online sound was tinny.

It rained last night, first measurable rain of the season. Meanwhile, according to today's paper, the presence of one county in the region that hasn't shut down its outdoor dining, hair salons, etc., has had people flocking to it from around the region. Are they suicidal? To me that's all the more reason to stay away and avoid bringing my breathing apparatus into that county. And to increase vigilance even in my own. How I'm doing shopping ... tell you after Hanukkah dinner, since that's part of that story.