Wow. Jane's phone just summoned her to another audition tomorrow morning. At least they're still casting for commercials. We wondered how this economic slowdown ("Obama's Recession" according to the FOX News geniuses) would affect the action here. But word is that with folks staying home now to watch TV and companies needing to sell stuff, they just may make even more ads than usual. Won't that be fun? We shall see...

David says these early days of December always remind him of a weird guy he knew when he was a kid. The man was half Japanese-American and half African-American, and every year he commemorated December 7th by attacking Pearl Bailey. [Why do we keep reporting this stuff?]

Winter is really setting in here. After several 60-something-degree days, the wool hats, sweaters and long coats are everywhere. And the leaves are falling, but they don't turn colors. They just kinda drop dead. Lots of trees keep their leaves year round, but they still drop quite a few. It's also the time to prune many trees back to gnarly little fists of twigs at the ends of stubby branches – the evidence of years of repeated pruning at the same point. Come springtime, they'll leaf out into those nice green balls that we all drew for trees in our 1st grade artwork. But they sure look pitiful right now.

And finally, we apologize if we've been slow in responding to your emails. The free Wi-Fi from our host's home has been sporadic for several days. That's inconvenient for David but professionally challenging for Jane, since that's her source of audition info. Funny how this amusing toy has evolved into a way of life, huh? It's scary to think how we'd survive now without all of the data on our little laptops.

Wed 3 December
In an amazing display of acting prowess, Jane became an Italian Granny at her audition this morning. That's what the role called for, and she was more than a little nervous. But she hobbled boldly in and down the stair to the studio, where she was met and adopted by a real Italian gentleman who assured her that in northern Italy there are plenty of blonde, blue-eyed signoras. Jane was delighted to hear this, but still spoke little and low, knowing that few Italianas have Texas accents.

Afterward, he escorted Jane to the car and bade her a rather too-friendly farewell. She smiled all the way home.

Sun 7 December
David just wrapped up a musical weekend. Besides the usual Thursday night choir rehearsal, there was a Saturday afternoon choir rehearsal with the bell choir – a set of German Christmas Carols (in German) for Sunday's bell choir concert. His year in Comfort TX learning to pronounce all those German names finally paid off.

Then he raced out to tiny Mount St. Mary's College high on a hilltop above Brentwood to hear Cappella, a 14-member professional choir. This Grammy-winning group sang an inspired concert of Christmas classics, and the campus chapel provided a perfect setting for masterworks from the past 500 years. As he walked back to the car, his view of city lights from a point that looks down on the Getty Center would have been worth the drive, even without the concert.

Today David and the church choir sang the 9:00am service and the 3:00pm Bell Choir concert. Now he's home with a happy smile... and with his feet up.

Jane missed all this, choosing to rest her fractured ankle and keep her head cold to herself, so she was home Saturday evening to enjoy Mark's phone call. They spoke of many things, including his new and improved Shepherd Stoneworks website. He is doing amazing work, and his photo gallery provides an exciting but inadequate record of his recent jobs.

Wow! Two kids, two artists, two websites for proof. Could we be more proud?

Thu 11 December
Jane is feeling down in the dumps these days. She is nursing an ankle fracture and fighting a head cold. She's had no calls for auditions, other than some non-paid independent film she may do this month. And now the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) is on the verge of a strike over unfair pay in the growing internet entertainment business. Not a good sign.

But she cheered up a little yesterday after we bought a tiny tree for our tiny house and loaded it up with tiny twinkling lights. Now she knows that Christmas is finally coming. She celebrated by having David drive her to Babies R Us, where she bought tiny togs for two of our newborn friends out here. If you want to know how to cheer up Granny, just involve her in anything that includes monkeys or small children.

Daughter Laurie just bought her ticket for a January visit – our very first company in the new home. We tried to get her to come for the big SUDZ gathering in February and serve as official event photographer, but four days with a houseful of retirees reliving college days was just too much, even for Laurie. But that's OK. Now we'll have her all to ourselves.

There was snow in Houston yesterday. All you in the northern parts of our nation can't realize what that does to to the mind of a small Texas child... or a large one, for that matter. As kids, we all sang "White Christmas", saw snowball fights in the movies and heard snow stories from our parents, a few of whom had actually seen some. We stared at dark winter clouds and prayed, especially as Christmas drew near. But snow never came, at least never then. Once or twice a February norther brought ice, a little sleet, and a couple of snowflakes that got all our little hearts to pounding.

David's parents had photos of him at age 1 or 2, all bundled up on a homemade sled and being pulled around the yard in a couple of inches of snow. He used to claim that he remembered it, but finally admitted that he just remembered seeing those photos so many times.

Eventually we headed off to college in Central Texas and got snowed on a couple of times. Then, four years and two kids out of college, we spent a winter in Rochester NY and found that it was not all fun and games. Even later in our steep hills of Vashon Island and Seattle, snow was a rare but VERY life-changing event. A hilltop home is not so great when your old cars have slick tires and no chains.

So now we have December snow on the Gulf Coast. And just a couple of years ago they got 6 inches of snow during the night before Christmas. This is proof that prayers are answered... but you may have to wait 60 years or so.

Tue 16 December
We sat down to update this journal several times over the weekend, only to find our Wi-Fi was dead... again. Very frustrating. But it's working today, so we'd better get busy.

Jane got out to a couple of classes, and has another tonight. She even drove a couple of times with her boot cast, so that's progress. But she got a new X-ray yesterday and her doctor said there hasn't been much healing so far. So she's drinking more milk today and wondering how to get this over faster. Send her all your ideas.

We made the trek over to Time-Warner Headquarters yesterday to pick up a cable box so we could record our favorite shows again. David hooked it up but couldn't use it until he called in to activate it. Every time he called, he got a busy signal. Things got mighty tense here dealing with a cable company that can't be reached, on a cell phone that can only occasionally get a signal, and a computer that can't connect to the web for information about either problem. He vowed to get up early today and try to get through to Time-Warner.

About 3:30 he awoke for a bathroom break and decided to call then. More busy signals. Then on a hunch, he rechecked the number and found he'd been one digit off. Another try and... IT WORKED... for almost a minute until the phone dropped the call.

Eventually he got through, the TV produced a picture, and David was so excited that he stayed up to be sure all was well. The good news is that we now have LOTS of channels. The bad news is that the controller won't control the volume, which requires the old clicker. Whee! A two-clicker TV. The other bad news is that it won't record anything – our main reason to get the cable box. Boo. Hiss.

On a more positive note, we're enjoying some actual near-winter here this week. Not the freezy stuff that so many of you are suffering right now, of course, but there was record rainfall overnight in many areas and serious snow above 3000 feet. The nearest ski area between here and Vegas is up and running, and the locals are giddy. We even had to run our little portable heater last night. Sadly, some of the heaviest rain fell in areas that burned last month, so now those folks have mud sliding down their barren hillsides, and it's likely to continue for the next five days.

Paradise is an elusive goal.

Thu 18 December
Last night we finally quit joking about LA winters after we drove to the mall in blowing rain, temps in the 30's, and gale force winds that almost blew us over as we struggled back to the car like the people you see during hurricane coverage on TV. We hurried home, abandoned our tiny R2-D2 heater and fired up the gas wall furnace. Aaahhhhh.