Merry Christmas!

Hey, I put this up around 7:30 this morning - and now I find it wasn't posted!  So here it is again.

Here’s an intriguing epitaph.  I wish I knew how to find out the rest of the story:

Thomas Gilbert
Died
Jan. 21, 1868.
AEt. 85 yrs.

The voice of a step Father.

Beneath this stone is [laid] to rest one
Shamefully robbed in life
By his wife’s son, and Esquire Tom,
And Daniel Seavy’s wife.

Christmas has already begun for Ellen and me.  We went to dinner at our dear friends, the Smiths’, house, watched “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” dined sumptuously, then opened presents.  I think my favorite present came from Ellen.  It’s a “geek” t-shirt, black with big red letters reading WARNING, and under it in white: INSUFFICIENT MEMORY.  Boy is that ever the case!  I’ve got an all-day writers’ group meeting on Saturday and I think I’m going to wear that shirt.

Christmas Day we’re staying in, snacking all day and reading favorite novels – though I may tune in to watch “A Christmas Story,” to see Ralphie finally get his Daisy air rifle.  I have the collection of short stories that movie comes from.  It’s by Jean Shepherd and titled, In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. 

And if you’re looking for a fun, light, clever Christmas mystery, may I toot my own horn and recommend Original Sin by me as Mary Monica Pulver?  It was published back in 1991.  I re-read it a couple of weeks ago and was pleased to find it still very entertaining!  FTL Publications has re-published it if it’s no longer in your public library.  It’s about a Christmas gathering in an old country house that gets isolated by a blizzard and then the occupants are further upset by a body in the library.

I’ve started work on Ebenezer’s Christmas Yarn.  To my pleased surprise, the first chapter just rolled off my fingers onto the computer screen.  Sometimes that happens.

I also had a good and happy meeting with the author of the screenplay of Murder At the War.  I think now he was apprehensive about the meeting, thinking I’d demand lots of changes.  But I think he did a great job.

Christmas Eve my friend Tanya Smith is having a knee replaced, and we’re going to sit with her family in support.  They sat with me while Ellen had a cancerous kidney removed this past summer, and were such a comfort to me.  Though I wouldn’t wish surgery on anyone for any reason, I’m pleased to be able to return that favor.

And may I wish every one of you a happy and blessed holiday season, and a healthy and prosperous 2015!