Christmas FAIL

I woke up on Christmas morning and Echo, the online service I run, was completely crashed. Thank God for our hosting service Atlantic Metro Communications, and AlchemyCS, my techs. My system is as old-school as it gets, but Lazlo at Atlantic poked around and figured some things out, and he continued to work on the problem until AlchemyCS woke up (they are west coast based, plus it was freaking Christmas). Everything came back up eventually, but my plans for going out to Long Island to spend Christmas with my family were blown.

Although there were certainly things to eat in my apartment I was determined to put together something at least out of the ordinary for my sad little Christmas dinner, so once everything was back up I went out to forage. Now I know what people who don’t celebrate Christmas go through. I ended up with a quiche and a salad and we just won’t discuss dessert. When I think of what I would have had (my sisters-in-law can really cook)! Sob.

Christmas Eve was a bigger success. I went to the great play In Fields Where They Lay, and you you have two more chances to see this if you are in New York, tonight and tomorrow, and I highly suggest you GO GO GO. It’s about the WWI Christmas truce in 1914. Seriously. GO. After the play I went to a party hosted by old neighbors of mine, the Speichers, and sang Christmas carols. Wonderful people have wonderful friends so I always have such a great time at their annual Christmas Eve parties.

Below are some members of the cast of In Fields Where They Lay singing a carol. Talented people are so often multi-talented. It’s not fair! Not only can they act, but they can sing, etc. For instance, the actor who played the Sargent, Zack Calhoon, stood out for me. All the actors were great for the record, but that character grabbed me. Calhoon is a writer on top of everything else, it turns out. Anyway, this video didn’t come out so well, they were singing in the dark, but you can hear their beautiful voices.