Not Dead, Just Being Descended Upon

[abracanabra]

The in-laws will be visiting from Wisconsin this weekend, bearing early Christmas gifts and venison summer sausage, so probably not much will be seen of myself and the Mad Scientist. We declared our inability to visit them for Christmas this year, so they decamped in our direction. However! I like it when my in-laws visit (as opposed to the parents). The in-laws always bring food, gifts, and adequate funds to stay in a hotel. Also, we can drink with them, and they take us out to restaurants on a regular basis. The plan is to visit the History Museum and the Museum of Russian Art and to celebrate Christmas by unwrapping the (as-yet-unwrapped) gifts sitting underneath my Post-Modern Christmas Tree. Yes, the Mad Scientist presented sufficient arguments to back up the nixing of a real Christmas tree, so I decorated the strange metallic shoe-tree-sculpture-thing. It looks gorgeous. Pictures will be forthcoming. Despite not being able to socialize or probably play the monthly poker tournament, the in-laws' visit will be beneficial--it has got me out of working the full weekend at Job #1, and it will keep me from going to Hwa Rang Do classes tomorrow, which is probably a good thing, as on Tuesday I either repeatedly hyper-extended or partially dislocated my right shoulder while doing a two-hour class. Don't worry; it feels better after taking Thursday off, by which I mean pain isn't waking me up in the night, though I'm still far more aware of my shoulder than I'd like to be. Also more prone to snarling at people who try to hug me.