While We Were Sleeping...

...lots happened and these guys pretty much covered the whole caboodle.
But the Babu had good reasons for disappearing.
He was:
a) packing books and discovering that most of our furniture consists of bookcases, that old books produce very pungent dustballs while new books produce only mildly-scented ones, and most important, the books you've just packed at the bottom of carton number forty are the ones you really, really want to read.
b) learning that when you have two proof copies of your first published book ever, even if it's just an anthology and not a Real I Wrote It All Myself artifact, you do not want to accidentally pack them in carton 39 which is the lowest carton at the back of a row four-deep with six other cartons on top of it.
c) wondering what to do about the identity thingie, since keeping it secret diminishes his ability to brag about the subject of (b) and most of his friends know who the Babu is anyway.
d) wincing at the only picture of the Babu in real life that exists in print, because in it we look lopsided, fat and like Bobo the Clown's sad cousin.
e) in tribute to the holiday season, eating way too much plumcake. We can't stand plumcake or fruitcake or simnel cake, but we hate it so much we can't stand looking at it either, so... we eat it.
f) sending up a huzzah to friends who have been more productive, and who have, in different ways, accomplished much in the last days of 2004.