as i was saying...

the cold continues apace. i don't even want to THINK about my next gas bill. it looked like we might get some rain here today in Santa Barbara, but i didn't notice a drop. one of the pleasures of the season: egg nog. i best like mine heated, with some brandy in it, and with cinnamon on top.
will go out of town from the 23rd to the 27th to see 2 of my brothers and their families. We'll convene in Aptos where my brother Bryan and family live.
today i finished Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen (which i enjoyed) and donated it to the front table in the Sportsman Lounge. for a bookmark, i used the accidentally torn front flap of the dust jacket of another book, The Meaning of Tingo by Adam Jacot de Boinod. "tingo?" a verb from the Pascuense language of Easter Island meaning to borrow, one at a time, all the objects that one desires from the house of a friend. this book is about unusual words from languages from around the world, with a special focus on words which have no exact equivalent in English. a favorite: yuyurungurul. an onomatopoeic word from one of the aboriginal Australian languages (i forget which) referring to the sound a snake makes moving through tall grass. i read that the author works as a researcher for the BBC. he also wrote a follow-up, titled Toujours Tingo. my next book: Critical Mass: Bicycling's Defiant Celebration, edited by Chris Carlson...picking up where i left off a while ago in that book. it concerns Critical Mass Day, a tradition that began over 10 years ago in San Fransisco. on the last Friday of every month, people in scattered communities worldwide ride their bikes en mass.
Santa Barbarans have embraced Critical Mass Day only intermittently and in small numbers. still, i fondly remember how one year the last Friday in October fell on Halloween, so Critical Massers rode their bikes in costume. i WISH i'd had a camera with me. i especially liked one rider's jester costume.

good night.