Holidazed.

I gave away my drysuit this week.

Well, one of them anyways, since I found myself quite unexpectedly & delightedly in possession of 2. Yep, TQ absolutely blew me away with his slightly early Christmas gift - he presented it to me on the Wednesday before Christmas, when we were getting ready to launch for that wonderful camping trip. GoreTex. With socks. Faced with such an unbelieveably great gift, it just seemed that passing on the old one gratis was the only decent response. Especially I'd already gotten a killer deal on the old coated nylon one, which was a replacement from Kokatat for the old Frankensuit (so named by Goofy because of the AquaSeal & edges of old gaskets peeking out from under various replacement gaskets I'd put on it over the course of several years).

Found a taker quickly, and told him that I was going to be up in CT for Christmas, but that I'd be back at work this week from Wednesday through Friday & he could come try it on & collect it then. He did so on Thursday. Fit him fine, and I'm hoping he can get out on some of the paddles the Rustbucketeers have been doing.

He asked me when the last time I'd been out was. I thought back. It seemed like weeks ago - we didn't get out over Christmas, family was visiting & the weather was just sort of dreary. "Oh, gee, not for a couple of weeks, I guess. But I'm going out on New Year's Day. Can't wait."

After he left, it hit me that the last paddling I'd done had been our camping trip exactly one week before.

But then there'd been running back and forth between CT & NY - Chocolate Mission to Rockefeller Center -- a Christmas Eve Day run to B&H photo to pick up the Optio WP20 that I'd been hemming & hawing over getting TQ until he took me by surprise with his gift - plus various other errands, and housekeeping, and catching up with people I hadn't talked to in ages.

Then there was Christmas itself - TQ is the youngest in a large family, and there was a houseful, including a couple of fairly young kids. Definitely fun, but a little overwhelming for someone who's sort of opted out of formal holiday celebrations in favor of staying in NY and enjoying a nice quiet couple of days off, maybe having a few friends over, doing a little paddling, and generally taking at least one long walk out at Coney Island. Phew. Big change of pace.

Uninspiring weather didn't help either - we had a couple of short jaunts, but not as much outdoors time as I usually try to get over the holidays.

Went back to work on Wednesday feeling very overfed & underexercised. We used to have a gym, but that got closed as part of cost-cutting measures - I really missed it this week. Instead, I went for a couple of long walks after work & spent my subway rides daydreaming about long paddles out along Coney Island

I am really looking forward to the Frostbite Regatta. Sounds like we'll have a good couple of hours of paddling, and several people joining me in some New Year rolling - not as tough as the Polar Bear Swim paddlers, but should be fun!

But I think I'm also looking forward to the end of the holiday season!

It was sort of funny how abruptly it hit me that I'm sort of holidayed out...

TQ's coming down for New Year's, and I actually found myself getting a little panicky trying to figure out Something To Do on New Year's Eve. Sadly, at one point we'd actually been talking about going to see James Brown, but the club he was going to be playing at was really close to Times Square & when I started looking at the instructions for how to get through the police barricades I got scared off, and we mutually decided that we'd go next time he was performing at BB King's...I really thought there would be a next time.

Anyways, this left us planless for New Year's Eve itself. The Big Night. With the Frostbite Regatta launching at 10 on the 1st, I didn't want to make too late a night of it. There's a great new restaurant in my area, The Farm on Adderley - I checked there & sure enough, they had 2 seatings for New Year's Eve. I figured I'd make reservations for us for the earlier, I could dress up & look nice, we'd have their 5-course meal, it would be nice.

Except that I just couldn't get excited about it - and when I started trying to figure out why, I realized that I was just getting ready to make those reservations because It's New Year's Eve And You're Supposed to Do Something Fancy. Fact is, a five-course meal, after all the good eating & minimal exercise of the last couple of weeks, just isn't something I can get excited about.

Far more appealing is the idea of just staying home, making something good for dinner &...oh, have I mentioned this is not a relationship blog?

Thank goodness, he was fine with that too. He's just finished up with a houseful of people, too - wasn't too hard to sell him on the idea of having a nice, quiet, low-key evening at my place.

One of the things I really like about TQ is that he's not big on doing things because You're Supposed to Do Them. I'm not usually, but after the full-tilt family Christmas, I think I just sort of got hypnotized by the hurry of the season.

I'm so relieved to have snapped out of it before we were sitting there eating a large, expensive meal that neither of us really felt like we needed. Now I'm actually looking forward to New Year's Eve.

And New Year's Day, too, of course!

Closing now, possibly 'til '07, with a hearty "Hauoli Makahiki Hou", straight from Brooklyn! Happy New Year!