Jan. 5 Run: Tazza D'oro on Highland Ave., whither we don't know---and don't forget: New Year's Day run, from Starbucks on Forbes, 7:30 a.m.

First runs of 2014!  Jan. 1, a holiday run from Starbucks on Forbes & Shady at 7:30, then Jan. 5,  starting in Highland Park at Tazza D'oro at 7 of course - any inspirational routes or themes will be entertained.

Last week is all a blur - I don't know about you, but my brain is not computing these on-again, off-again holidays - what day is it again?  But we did have a perfectly wintry Christmas run all through Smithfield and Homewood cemeteries where Wendy and David (through the group mind-meld) somehow knew where to find us.  Then on Sunday, dripping and dreary as it was, a trio of us (Lainy ran up in time for coffee) splashed through Oakland's dark ramshackle streets, making our detour into the soaring bright holiday-festooned Cathedral of Learning almost a religious experience.

The whole thing felt quite deliciously Dickensian (PtB may have something to say about that) bringing us to our endorsements:

• (This is mine.) The Royal Shakespeare Company's 8-hour theater production of Dickens' Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby - truly one of the great stage experiences of all time - filmed at the Old Vic to be telecast here in 1983 - is on YouTube.  Broken up in to 8 episodes, but all the same, completely divine.  And you can see it on your TV screen using Roku or AppleTV.  What a world we live in.
• (This is Lainy's.) The Paradise - Victorian TV drama - sounds like the perfect chaser.