We had supper at the lodge restaurant with Alice and Ken and his family. Fridays are sometimes slim pickings—everyone seems determined to have fish!—but they also had barbecue ribs on the menu. These were meaty, not fatty, and had a sauce that was not vinegary or spicy. Quite good.

Afterwards we gathered in the common area of the lodge building and did the usual chat. I finished a small cross-stitch project for James' mom and continued a little while on a Christmas heart, then read some from the book I had brought with me. Having now finished my collection of St. Nicholas, I am now accumulating some volumes of Wide Awake, which was published concurrently until St. Nicholas bought it out in 1893. But I think that's a subject for a Cozy Nook post, since there's some interesting aspects to the publication.

John (one of two here) is testing out a radio-control helicopter as I type. Four people are sitting in the sunken seating area around the non-functioning fireplace (they don't have fires after April 1). More folks are talking behind me. After getting some passable reception in the room before, the WiFi completely cut out, so I've come out to the common area to post, check e-mail, and have a brief fling on chat. I was going to go on battery, but James, Jerry and John (the other John) were enjoying a political blog and a video on YouTube, so I'm presently tethered to one of the very few plugs in the common area by the laptop cord and nine feet of extension cord.

We've been coming here together to Unicoi for a long time, longer than fourteen years; I'm not quite sure how long it's been now. The gathering used to be in October, but we got tired of the Oktoberfest bit that Helen throws each year in keeping with the Bavarian theme. We were trying to relax and the crowds were daunting. So we started coming in the spring, first in March and then in April. It's very obvious time has passed: when we first began coming here there would be a crowd in the common room until one, two, three o'clock in the morning, chatting, reading, playing games. Now it's only 11:45, but only about a dozen folks are here; the rest have gone to bed. Many of us are in our fifties and several folks here are in their sixties or seventies.

Tomorrow some folks will go into town, some will go on a hike, some bicycling. In the late afternoon there will be a Tea Party as was done last year. This year's theme is Harry Potter. Since we cruised Helen today, we're talking about driving up to Hiawassee tomorrow. I'd like to find the Christmas shop we always see advertised on the way here.

Labels: books, Christmas, food, weekend

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