retreating for New Year's

Tomorrow morning I leave for the Olympic Peninsula (weather permitting ferry travel) not to return until Tuesday. I'll be travelling with Alicia and Halima, to a semi-SCA (ie non-official) scribal retreat organised by Tamlyn. Other people will be very busy and energetic, but I'm teaching a mere two classes, so I'll be for the most part treating this as a retreat (gasp!).
I'm taking a bunch of books from my to-be-read pile, my laptop and some mapping materials. I'm going to read, drink tea, and maybe get some writing done. I may get back to Tom's story while I'm letting Willow Knot lie fallow.
Mark the wonder husband scanned a heap of coloured pictures to use in the class on drapery in painting, and hopefully I'll come up with useful things to say about them. I've copied into a handout what Theophilus, Cennini and Dionysius of Fourna have to say about painting drapery, but my own observations will have to be spoken. I may revise the handout for next time, if this isn't such a specialised class that I never teach it again.
I made some very rough notes about looking at drapery as either calligraphic or sculptural, and as either revealing the body or hiding it, but I haven't built them into sentences and paragraphs the way I usually do.
My excuse is that I agreed to teach the course in November, when in the midst of Nanowrimo, and that in December getting my Christmas prep done (for once) in good time only left me about 3 evenings free, some of which I spent feeling too achey to concentrate on anything anyways. And that the first time I teach any course it's flawed. My first set of students are always lab rats, which is too bad, but can't really be helped, and usually they don't do too badly from it.
The road trip should be fun, though it won't be all that long. I've packed a few cds. The site has a tv and dvd player, but on reflection I decided that my Christmas present of the complete Sonny Chiba Streetfighter oeuvre might not be suitable for the other attendees, and hopefully I'll have a chance to watch it with Chris when I get back. That was one of his presents to me. Scanner Cop was another. I'm so looking forward to those.
There's a resolution for January. To catch up with my unwatched martial arts and horror dvds. Evenings are now reserved for that activity.
Happy New Year to my presumed readers. May your coming year be as full of wire-work and stunt doubles as you desire.