Well, in the last two days I have stormed off a mailing list, I've gone shopping and decided I hate the new store, I feel like bursting into tears... oh, wait.

Last year Bernadette came home at Christmas a depressed wreck and we (well, I at least) decided that she has "seasonal affective depression", that she reacts badly to the lack of sunlight in the winter.

Now, I used to get sick for a week or two every winter. Until I had my tonsils out at 12, it was tonsillitis, and then it was an annual flu/cold/bronchitis/sinusitis. Sometimes I would really be out of it for weeks afterwards. I have thought since that maybe it was caused by second-hand-smoke, and maybe it was.

I've mentioned before the Christmas of 1971 when I was just drifting along, and sort of living in a fog, till the 2-yr-old sang "happy birthday" to Baby Jesus and I rediscovered joy. Last year I had fallen and took some time to heal. This year I have the sore shoulder to grab my attention and here I am kind of drifting again. Hmmm. Maybe I, too, have SAD. Since Sacramento is farther south than Laramie or England, I may not have it as badly as I could. I did note, going to Pittsburgh, how early it gets dark in Minnesota and Pennsylvania. I didn't like it, either. Hmmm.

So I'm trying some melatonin, seeing if it restores some color to life. I've also walked the last two days. Yesterday we did the same walk as we did on Tuesday, giving into the dog's eager pacing back and forth and back and forth. It was either that or kill him, and trust me, I considered it. I discovered yesterday that we're now living in Little Russia. Every person we saw, which was a bunch of kids playing and two sets of grandparents with toddlers or babies, was Russian. I had seen a Cyrillic "Vacancy" sign outside one apartment building last spring, but it's a lot more than just that building. It's neat, and at least here they have enough potatoes to eat. I'm worried about our Petersburg friends.

I was asked to go to the Star Trek movie, and wasn't interested. I don't think that is so much dark-induced depression as it is common sense. I did bake a sinfully calorific dessert, which is nice. I get the urge to bake once a decade or so, so it was good to take advantage of it.

Rats, I meant to call my Brit-friend, Tim's mother, this morning, as today she's 50! I remembered it at 4, too late, midnight her time.

Besides the melatonin and the fresh-air-and-exercise, I've also been reading a seasonal Pratchett, HOGFATHER. The Discworld equivalent of Santa Claus, the Hogfather, has been assassinated, so Death attempts to take over. "HO. HO. HO. COWER, BRIEF MORTALS." This could cheer anyone up!

Again, we were listening to the historic events in Washington. I did enjoy Hyde's remark that the success of censure depends on the recipient (in other words, no shame to the shameless) and that in this case it would be like "yelling at your teenager. It purges you of some feelings, but it doesn't do any good." Been there, done that. The ABC reporter (I'm not sure if it was Bettina Gregory or not) said the Democrat's plea for censure fell on "22 deaf ears." 44, I think.

Representative Lazio of New York, who is with the President in Israel, said he wasn't going to tell how he would vote till he got back. I figure perhaps he's looked at the Ron Brown "accident." He did say that Clinton "has to look in the mirror and decide what's more important, his career or the health of the country", so I think we can guess how he'll vote.

It's times like these I want cable. I was glued to the TV in '74 for the Rodino hearings. There's only the one radio station locally, and they break in every 10 minutes or so (it's guaranteed to be when I'm really concentrating on a speech!) Very annoying. Yet the networks were all over the "trial of the century" (how convenient, Nurnburg was just a blip, I guess), O.J.