Time marches on, it would seem.

We received our first Christmas card today. Perhaps, were I living in the southern hemisphere, I might be able to think of Christmas in this heat. But I'm not, and today was not "Christmas-y cool". So, not today.

Our good friend, the Lady C, has no such limitations. Now I think of it, the Lady C is quite short of limitations. She was, however, shocked (shocked, I tell you!) to see Christmas cards already for sale in Dublin, Ireland.

I mean, there's Thanksgiving yet, not that they celebrate it there. But Halloween too. And they celebrate that there. It's her favorite holiday. Says it's the only day she can go out as herself, and nobody notices.

Don't ask.

None of this, of course, stopped her buying one. She included the receipt with the date circled so we would know it really was bought in September. She also ringed the price so we'd know we were worth several Euro to her. Quite what she has planned for the Crayola Gigantic Colouring Set, also on the receipt, I don't know.

Another "don't ask" moment.

Still it's nice to be thought of. And to be thought of by her, ah well...

I've based three characters on the Lady C. And it will take many more to do more than hint.

A long way from Clare to here...

Even longer from Dublin to here...in oh so many ways.

Going by the day rather than the date, I stepped off a plane in Oakland seventeen years ago today. In one hundred four degrees of heat - and an overcoat. Given I was arriving with pretty much all I had to my name, it was the easiest way to carry it.

"Easiest" - at least up until that point.

Much had happened to bring me to that place and that time. Yet more has happened since. While I might wish to change some aspects of my life up to that watershed arrival, I would not care to change anything that has transpired since.

A long way - and not only in time and space.

Faraway (or even nearby) hills are green

As I walked to my sister's earlier today, the damp air reminded me of the value of multiple layers of clothing. Not something I generally think of in Northern California - even in the (shallow) depth of Winter.

And certainly not in May.

Ahead of me a cat, looking for all the world like it was wearing white slippers on all four feet and a long midnight black robe, paused in mid-step to stare at me. Startled green eyes regarded me for a moment before the cat slunk, as if embarrassed to be seen in such a state of undress, through a small gap in a garden hedge.

I stepped when I reached the spot where the cat had disappeared, but there was nothing to be seen.

I moved on under a deep gray sky. Up ahead, the foothills of the Dublin mountains were topless, their rolling contours obscured by the clouds that seemed settled in for the day.

In Northern California the hills are green in the Winter months. Here, in the Emerald Isle, they are so all year round.