(Though I seem to have bought an extra day, since the girls are coming on Boxing Day instead. Other family news: Monica is giving Mark the same thing I'm giving Rich. How funny. And Bernadette finally came to and asked for her ticket home... since she's got an e-ticket and I sent her the information weeks ago, I wish she would pay attention.)

Wednesday I took off to see Elizabeth which I quite enjoyed, even if they didn't mention Dudley throwing his wife down the stairs so he'd be free to marry Elizabeth. The people behind me were trying to figure out who Mary, Queen of Scots, was, and I decided it was just too complicated to set them straight. Monica has walked on her grave, in Peterborough Cathedral.

Meanwhile, Rich had gone to the attic to bring down some Christmas boxes, and discovered the attic was very warm, as a heater duct was broken up there so the heater has been pumping warm air out of the house proper. Lovely.

I finally gave in and got my paper from Tower bookstore. Still, I was late home, and dinner was rushed so we could get out of the house.

That evening we went to the Festival of Lessons and Carols at the Cathedral. It was lovely. Rich managed to kick a nun in the aisle, a Very Bad Thing. I avoided the giggles on two of the readings: one from Isaiah about Him "slaying with His breath" (and I wondered what was wrong with Listerine) and the "there you shall find Joseph, Mary and the baby lying in a manger." (crowded manger, that.)
The choir and children's choir sang my absolute favoritest carol, Gesu Bambino and the choir alone did an African-chant one, Betelehemu. This was amusing to watch the men in their formal wear swaying back and forth and clapping. Neat!
The best part was seeing a choir-member friend at the end. The last time I saw her was at her son's bar-Mitzvah. I had seen her name in the program last year but wondered if she actually sang Christmas carols. Indeed she does. That son has given himself permission to be ordinary. I first met him when he was 5, going into the gifted second grade, and tremendously excited about Dungeons and Dragons. He'd read all the books and was enthusing at me, and had such a speech impediment he was nearly impossible to understand. After speech therapy, though, he proved to be extraordinarily gifted in many areas. However, he always put enormous pressure on himself, and was near-suicidal in 5th grade. He's been going to Stanford in pre-law and probably a number of other things, but his mom says he took a quarter off, is working for a Web service in town, and much happier. Yay. I've always liked this kid ever since the D&D conversation.

We caught up with the other kids, as well. It was a real joy to see her. (Nice voice, too!)

I e-mailed the younger two children with all that gossip, and then yesterday we went to the Gonzaga Christmas party so I had even more gossip to share. This party is down in San Francisco, so we planned to stop en route to see the Clydesdales at the Budweiser brewery for the week. sulk they were off to a parade in Napa. Then we went up to the gift store and discovered that while they have a lot of Louie the Lizard stuff, there is no video of him. So Rich was sulking as well. We went to the Jelly Belly factory and cheered ourselves up with a bunch of Bellyflops before heading on toward the City. We heard there was a gravel spill and subsequent backup on the Bay Bridge, so we went in through Marin.

The party is at the Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill, so we located that and then found a garage. ($17 for three hours: it's hardly surprising we don't do this often!) We were dressed for the occasion more than the location: sweatshirts that say "Gonzaga MOM" and "Gonzaga DAD". (I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader which of us wore which.) We had an hour to spend before the party, and I wanted to look at the lights and get a New York Times, so we headed DOWN to Union Square. Nob Hill is very steep: it's almost harder walking down it than up it. We looked at the lights on Union Square, and the display at Macy's, and the SPCA windows with the adoptible pets. We walked into Nieman Marcus and gawped (well, I gawped) at their tree. The doorman at the Sir Francis Drake hotel wears a beefeater costume! I kept looking at newstands and bookstores and liquor stores, and finally, on the way back to the hotel, I found the last copy of the NYT in all San Francisco. We then continued back up the hill and then, with some 15 minutes left, we looked at the Pacific Union club (the Flood mansion, the only mansion on Nob Hill to survive the earthquake.) We walked through a park and talked to some people playing with dogs, then into the Fairmont.
Going through the lobby to the meeting room I felt quite underdressed, but we were certainly welcome at the party! Many of the new alumni who know Vince and Bernadette spoke to us. $6 glasses of wine kept us sober! The food was nice, cold cuts and crackers. A nice party. I was glad we went.
Afterwards I spent some time watching the Mark Hopkins doorman trying to flag a cab. My cab experience is quite limited. For 50 cents my Mom and I used to be able to take a taxi from our house to downtown Laramie. If you were downtown the way to get a cab was to go to the office. We've driven with them in New York City, which is scary. The only time I've ever flagged a cab was in London, and I was successful the two times I did it. The doorman was having a hard time: somehow I just thought they whistled up cabs and they magically appeared. He finally got it and we ransomed our cab. We were home by 10, which isn't bad.

I've had a thought. I wonder if the Founding Fathers didn't think Impeachment would happen a lot more than it has? Especially in the Adams-Jefferson days, when the Vice President could be of the other party, they must have thought it would happen a lot. Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel! Certainly in the expansionist-abolitionist days, politics was a more, uh, vigorous thing than it is today.

One quote that struck me, but I didn't hear who said it and I didn't find it written anywhere, was: "I wonder if [the difference between 1974 and today] doesn't say more about the characters of the Republicans then and the Democrats of today than it does about the case." I remember Howard Baker, for instance, the minority leader, who suffered, but who voted to impeach. And I have to say, Maxine Waters is NO Barbara Jordan!

About popularity: if a REPUBLICAN had distracted the public by bombing a pharmaceutical plant and killing 233 people, over the objections of his staff, would the papers have dropped it? Or would they still be talking about it 4 months later? I suspect they'd be dinning away at it on the front page and the Republican's popularity polls would be quite different.

Al makes me feel bad, but then I read Safire's column in yesterday's paper. He (Safire) doesn't think the Senate would allow a long trial. Certainly the Democrats wouldn't filibuster for one. This is a White House smoke screen, says Safire. I hope he's right, and I hope the House listens to Schippers' closing yesterday:

"What you do here will be incised in the history of the United States for all time to come. Unborn generations ... will learn of these proceedings and will most certainly judge this committee's actions.
"What will be their verdict? Will it be that you rose above party and faction and reestablished justice, decency, honor and truth as the standard by which even the highest office in the land must be evaluated?
"Or will it be that you announce that there is no abiding standard and that public officials are answerable only to politics, polls, and propaganda?"

I have posted the entry for November 23, where we visit the University of Pittsburgh and learn about some logical fallacies. (This one's for YOU, Al!)