My dreams are all about legwarmers

I dreamt last night of, well I don't really know, but the dream featured, as one of the passerby, a young woman wearing some kind of long cardigan or coat, black capri tights, tall-shaft black boots, and little legwarmers that closed the gap between the tights and boots.

I am a genius, no?

Today's to-do list:
-- roast the biggest, ugliest, promised-to-be-tasty pumpkin for pies, etc.
-- do work from home
-- pack for Thanksgiving in St. Louis
-- stay warm! leave at 5!

The other important question is what knitting to pack. I think I've already decided -- one-year-old nieces will not have Christmas spoiled if I let them see the presents I'm making them. They won't remember. They will remember being able to pull on my long, dangly earrings, however. But not if I don't give them the chance.

I've been looking at the Anthropologie catalog -- bad idea, bad idea -- but at least right now it's fueling a desire for making snowflakes, hanging them from our ceiling ... using slightly shiny paper, something silvery too ... and making them three-dimensional. I guess to do that, you just make four or six at once, fold the vertical diameter, and attach them to each other that way? I guess?

In my head, in a few weeks before friends start leaving town for break, I'm hosting a holiday party. Snowflakes hanging down, mulled wine and cider on the stove, cookies and little things to nosh. Not a dinner, not even a cocktail party, but something cozy. Maybe not cookies, even, but cake. Cakes are faster to make, you know. Well, I think so.

I pulled out my 1982 first-print run of Martha's ENTERTAINING, looking at pie recipes. Man, that Martha. Always able to convince me I could be a caterer and host a wedding reception for 250 at my home. If I had her home, of course. You just boil 100 lobsters one day, 100 the next, and so on ...

This is the first break I have that has no work accompanying my vaca. No work at all. Knitting only. I think I might freak out. No job search, no homework, no grading?! No syllabi-writing? No plagiarists to track down?!

For all these reasons I'm bringing knitting to both Thanksgiving dinners. Yes.