The wind-down wind-up.

Last night at midnight, all my students' work was due. So today, Saturday, my intentions were to:

• get up,
• grade, then
• meet my daughters for a little pre-wedding shopping.

What I did was:

• got up super early. At 10 a.m. I still don't quite know how that happened, but it was so choice.
• ate breakfast and read through the whole paper, including the sports pages' admiration of Kevin Durant, who was the means by which Oklahoma City prevailed last night against the Jazz, alas.
• got myself to my laptop where I prepared myself to grade by figuring out which student groups were missing what, sending messages, and preparing the rubrics. Then,
• I graded one student project.
• and then I went to the mall, which--surprise!--was a madhouse because--surprise!--Christmas.

Never mind. Two of my three daughters and I had our way, sort of, with Nordstrom and selected other stores. Then we sat down and had a restorative repast in the Nordstrom cafe, which involved the wolfing down of sundry french fries and salads and diet Cokes. The bride herself--Abbey--has not yet arrived in town. Those of us who are in town at the moment had this and that to look for--shoes and dresses and tights for the baby. You know, wedding stuff.

At the end of that, which was lovely, I was exhausted.

'Shopping can be exhausting,' said the historian.

'It can,' I had to agree.

'I find shopping exhausting,' he clarified.

'Listen, if I, whose shopping capabilities are considerable, found the shopping exhausting, it was totally exhausting,' I said, taking off my shoes and lying upon the bed and perhaps also under the covers.

We considered our movie options. Although there are a few we want to see, or sort of want to see, that we haven't seen, none of them moved us to arise and go, and go to the multiplex or the art house.

'Let's get some soup,' I said.

'Okay,' said the historian.

'Pho,' I clarified.

'Okay,' said the historian. Soup makes everyone agreeable.

So we tried a new pho place that had the great cultural advantage of being in our neighborhood. It was vegan pho, and it was quite good. We also had a coconut and pandan leaf waffle for dessert, with sweetened condensed milk to dip it in. Because it was our first time at the restaurant, and it's one of their specialties. It smelled like a sweet, baked thing as it arrived, pale green on the plate. It was lovely. And then, we came home and I put a few more ornaments on the tree, and then we watched A Very Murray Christmas and laughed. 

I predict that over the next few days, as we get closer and closer to the wedding, we'll have more and more to do, but I hope we can treat the more and more as special sweet things that are happening--our daughter's wedding, her happiness, the festivities, the joy, and all the lights and shining things gleaming.