Suddenly I have a plethora of good news and I hardly know where to begin. It's such a rare and lovely situation; forgive me for wanting to sit back and sip it slowly, single-malt style.

The good news is that I have a trainer again. The better news is that it's the trainer I've wanted all along: yes, I'm working with Val again. Her life has calmed down enough that she has time to add back a few clients, and that calmness coincided with my decision to toss her a why-not email to see if maybe she'd still have time for me.

This page explains in truly gory detail exactly how you would make a turducken. (Photos are worksafe, but page contains words that aren't.)

Yes, I know a couple of you are vegetarians … you know who you are. Just don't even read this, ok? You'd cry. But for the rest of you carnivores, you're about to encounter instructions like these:

When I was a teenager, I would stay up late on Christmas Eve, an ear on the quiet in the house and a mug of hot chocolate in my hand, watching whatever TV specials were available. Christmas Day was for family, but Christmas Eve was mine alone, a day of peace and quiet and reading.

Christmas Eve is a jazz day for me, the day that I dig out my Cassandra Wilson and Diana Krall and soak myself in the quieter side of life. Christmas Day is for family and yelling and presents and food and laughter; Christmas Eve belongs to me.

Amazing. About a week before Christmas, suddenly the suburban population of Huntsville wakes up and says, collectively, "Holy shit, Christmas is next weekend?

My list for today:

I've begun to suspect that there's a new craze sweeping my gym, and quite frankly, I'd like to find out who started the craze so that I may kill them.I think of them as the Anti-Fan Nazis. They're the people who come into the gym, turn off all the fans, and proceed to do a workout so light and easy I hesitate to even use the prefix work- in conjunction with it. Meanwhile, those of us who are working out, truly working out, are dying on the elliptical vine, drowning in our own sweat.