Advent 4

Spent the weekend at a cabin owned by friends alongside a reservoir near the Virginia border. It snowed five or six inches while we were there—more snow than I've seen since we moved from Utah. I'm taking it as a Christmas gift from nature, although digging and pushing our car out when it was time to go home was exhausting. I was especially happy for the dog: I've always suspected she would enjoy romping in deep snow, and I'm glad she got the chance to do it. Assuming the dog's a North Carolina native, this was more snow than she's ever seen in her life.

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Earlier in the week, I played the guitar at a Posadas celebration that was organized in our apartment complex by a little local human rights organization formed by an activist-minded UNC sociology professor who wanted to build productively on the energy generated by the protests against the management in our complex a couple of years ago. The Posadas celebration was planned by some of the professor's students working with residents of the complex, as an event to bring residents together. It was a nice turnout—I'm not good at estimating crowds, but 100 seems safe—mostly Latino but also white and African American. Great tamales afterwards. There are Burmese refugees in the complex too, and there's talk of working with them to organize a celebration of the Burmese New Year in April.

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The health care bill is so depressing, I can't dwell on it.