We watched "Cotton Comes to Harlem" on Saturday night--the first time I'd ever seen it. (Note: I have seen almost no movies. Don't ever ask me "Have you seen xxxx." I mean, you can ask me, but I probably haven't seen it). I laughted and laughed. Lester has also learned to make a laughing sound when we laugh--it sort of sounds like my highest-pitched, most squeaky laugh!

We slept and worked and exercised this weekend. I haven't had a regular yoga practice in weeks, and so was rather sore after a fairly standard mixed-level class on Friday. The place where my hamstring attaches to my hip etc continues to be sore, class or no. Too much sitting.

If I were going to be anywhere near the east coast next weekend, I'd go to the Festival of Contemporary Japanese Women Poets in New York. I'm excited about the bilingual book of translations from Litmus Press: Four from Japan. I like facing page translations. Even though I do not speak Japanese--I studied it for four weeks one summer in Singapore but can only remember how to say "I am a lawyer from ABC Television"--I will stare at the kanji!

I'm writing articles about home made holiday gifts. I like the idea of candied oranges with some kind of chocolate dipping sauce, but it doesn't sound very practical for something that has to be mailed. I'm going to be hauling all kinds of holiday gifts and other things off to Oman. Because of my weird ticket, I'm going to have to pick up my backs and recheck them at Heathrow. I'm not looking forward to it. But I am looking forward to wandering around the airport afterwards, and going to Boots. I'm looking forward to the drugstores in Oman, too. One of my favorite non-obvously touristy things to do in foreign countries is go to drugstores.