Headed for Potlatch

We went to the Priscilla's Christmas party in B'ham last night. Man, what a feed! The food was spectacular. One dessert, for example, was a chocolate covered mint patty that the maker said took her 8 hours. 8 hours! You could taste the love.

Interestingly enough, one of the guys at the Christmas party has been to Zambia, working with AIDS relief. We talked a bit about the stuff I had been seeing online, the statistics that can't be relied upon. He explained to me how difficult testing is there, largely for social stigmatic reasons. But he confirms the ravaging effect of AIDS on that country, as he's seen with his own eyes. It's like we need to have the statistics to quote here in North America in order for us to take the crisis seriously. A barrage of photographs won't sway us; we're numb to the media, anymore. We've been watching people die in Africa on our TV screens for decades. But scary statistics - that'll move us. In fact, we won't believe without them. So, they come up with some for us. "Studies show that 30% of people in Africa have AIDS," they say. And we sigh, make tsking noises ... take out our checkbooks. Whatever it takes, eh?

Hit the road this morning, on our way to Potlatch. We made it as far as Bellevue this afternoon and stopped for Christmas shopping. Amazingly, I got tons done. All I need to do is print photos and wrap gifts to ship to Newfoundland, for my family side of things.

We're in Woodinville tonight. I just cut Rob's hair (all those curls ... gone!) and I think we're going to do a little computer gaming before we hit the sack. Rob has an online meeting tomorrow morning before we drive to Idaho.