No school!  No work (for me, anyway)!

By the end of the blizzard we could have 13 inches of snow blowing and drifting and getting in our way.  The day off is a mixed bonus; just as getting to work is too difficult to expect us to do, getting to fun is too difficult to be able to do. 

Maybe everyone's over reacting, kind of flake-hysteric.  I mean how bad can it be?   Let's take a look at  the weather map.  I live in that optimistic colored spot.   

Er, maybe they aren't overexcited.  That looks pretty bad, doesn't it?  I'm not worried though.  I am totally prepared for a long siege at home, having bought extra coffee last night at the grocery store.  I'm all set for a long, long wait.

Okay, a couple of hours have passed and snowflake size has shrunk from the pretty fluff of seven a.m.  We now have mean little bits insidiously piling on top of the gentler hulks below. 

And I'm worried.  I mean, look at them massing out there.  Don't think they don't know that they have us seriously outnumbered and that there's no way we can stop them if they decide they want to cover us up entirely.  We'll be buried.  We'll be crushed.  We'll smother underneath the unforgiving heat-sucking ...

The problem with holidays celebrated in the warm company of close family is that in the month before them you actually have to talk to your sisters, mother, son, niece, etc. etc.

It's over three weeks until Christmas and the phone's ring jangles me constantly.  It signals that I'm about to have an awkward conversation with someone who wants to let off some pre-holiday steam and who probably doesn't want to hear my take on things.   My ears and I can't wait for Christmas! 

And as I write this, the phone rings again...

Early tomorrow my two younger sisters who will not tire of reminding me that I am the eldest of our mother's daughters will pick me up and we will traverse southward to Chicago for the Annual Pilgrimage of Inappropriate Holiday Joy.  I expect we will observe all of the customs of the trip.  Family matters of old and of this past sad year will be hashed and rehashed on the drive down and taken out from time to time to hash out yet again for good measure.  There will be a subtle air of competition in the air to see who thought of absolutely EVERYTHING necessary for powershopping.  We will find the most outrageous (and usually ugliest) hat in the city and the finder of the hat will be held in high esteem by the other two.  Intense girly shopping will be the main focus of the day, but traditional gifts of Merry Christmas panties for someone's dear daughter and heavy kitchenware for a sister-in-law will be bought as they are every year. 

There will be breakfasts out, lunches out, dinner out, coffee stops, and the annual gathering around Cosmopolitans.  Weariness will replace eagerness, being relaxed will replace feeling stressed.  We will remember past pilgrimages and be happy that we had the idea to do this every year,  despite new husbands, new babies, injuries, and irritation with one another.  And as it does every year, Chicago will give us the gift of Christmas spirit and we will return to our family to help others to enjoy it too.

My sisters and I are very unlike one another.  The two of them have the same dark hair and more intense personalities than I do.  If you pool the important things in our lives you'll have a prestigious job that one loves, a prestigious job that one hates, and a laugh of a job that one values.  You'll have loved children, some perfect, some imperfect, one absolutely impossible.  Two dogs that are as spoiled (and as well trained) as human effort can make them.  I suppose you'll find three men who I would think are enjoying some peace for the weekend.

And because we sisters love each other,  we'll talk a mile a minute.  Because we are different, we will each have moments of biting our tongues rather than speaking our minds.  As every year, the night before I leave is one of mixed anticipation and apprehension.  Early tomorrow morning the Pilgrimage begins.

Today I am going to traverse afar to bring Jean home for Christmas and her semester break.  I have enough CD's burned to play for the entire trip there--five or six hours with no repeats necessary.  Jean will have music a-plenty for the ride home.  I'll stop at the coffeeshop for liquid fortifications in cup and thermos and be on the interstate by seven-thirty in the morning.

When I reach Minneapolis I'll be meeting a friend of hers I haven't met yet.  The advance publicity has been uniformly positive so I expect it will be a very nice visit.  I expect Jean will have some mixed feelings about going from one good place to the other.  I hope we'll get homewardly bound in time to squeeze in some shopping on the way home and I hope that the weather doesn't live up to the forecast for tomorrow.

Between now and the time I leave I'm going to try to get some sleep but anticipation is making it awfully hard.

Goodnight.

New Year's Eve is nearing the evening hours here.

Every year brings us new opportunities--some of them new, some chances to continue work on old goals, some of them welcome and some of them bitterly unwanted.  2006 etched me more than nearly any other year I can think of.  I will always think of it with respect and though I hope that the passage of time will soften its scraping edges, I doubt I will ever think of it with a smile.

Last New Year's I posted that I was game to take on the then-unknown year, though I knew that it could bring sadness as well as happiness with it.  Maybe I shouldn't have written that; maybe I was just asking for it.

Tonight I am missing people who are gone and the easy confidence I used to have in the goodness of life.   I am going to let 2006 leave quietly and let 2007 come in and not welcome it until I have a sense of how it will conduct itself.

I am wishing all a Happy New Year's and a Good New Year.