Mishaps and other haps

We made it back to Madison around 9 PM last night, just as the weather was worsening.  The runway in Madison was covered in ice and snow, but clear enough for a smooth landing.  Those airport employees work hard to keep planes flying on time!

Travel today is going to be rough in the Midwest and the Great Plains down through the Texas Panhandle, where blizzard warnings are in effect.  It’s great that the timing worked out the way it did for all of us travelers this year.  Now if things will hold up well for flying to the East Coast on the 26th, we can ship Joe off to his destination without worries.

At home, we will be cooking Christmas Eve dinner for Michael’s family (those members in town) tonight.  This necessitates a grocery store run today.  Also, we should clean up the house a little.  Tomorrow we will be having fondue at Michael’s dad’s house and doing more family Christmas activities.

It has been really nice to draw the holiday season out a little longer this year and spend time with both of our families.  I wish we could spend a little more time with everyone, but the time we did spend was fun and everybody has been having a great time.

Joe will be flying out on the 26th– he has an agenda for his winter break.  The 27th is my birthday and I have some plans for the day.  We’re both back at work on the 28th, but are hosting a New Year’s party once again, so the long weekend next week will be filled with friends and celebration.

After that, back to the grindstone, but I think Michael wants to make some plans for January.  We need to sit down and discuss our 2010 vacation plans pretty soon, too.  It sounds like we may try to pull off a couple of trips to Florida.  Michael seemed eager to get back to the Gulf when the weather permits swimming …

Happy holidays to everyone!  We’ve been having a great time in Florida, hanging out with my family the past few days.  It has been a pretty relaxing time.

Michael met and spent some time with most of our family members on Dad’s side over the weekend and we made it to the beach on Monday.  Today we saw the  movie Avatar and had an early Christmas dinner and gift-opening since it’s our last full day visiting.

Tomorrow we return to our winter wonderland home for a snowy white Christmas with Michael’s family.

I am blogging from Michael’s netbook, which I have just inherited as my “new” laptop.  Michael upgraded to a new laptop this past week and is gaming while I write.  Sounds about right.

Have a Merry Christmas and  a Happy New Year!

Michael and I are both at home today since we are buried under a foot or more of snow and most of the state is under a blizzard warning until midnight.  The governor declared a state of emergency (preemptively) yesterday afternoon.  Snow fell most of the day yesterday, but it was pretty light.  Driving to and from work was a little slippery, but no real problem.  It must have been heavy at times after we went to bed because we woke up to “flat tops” and “mohawks” of snow on the table and chairs outside, as well as every other flat surface, and plenty of snow on the ground.

Our road hasn’t been plowed yet, so even if a blizzard warning wasn’t in effect, I would be staying home for the time being.  I don’t think we’ve had a blizzard warning before in the eleven years I have lived in Madison, either.  FYI, this terminology (“blizzard”) refers to blowing snow creating white-out conditions that make it impossible to see.  I have driven in heavy snow conditions that basically created the same effect and it was a nightmare.  I’m glad to be at home today.

At the current time, we still have power, which is a plus.  It’s out in some parts of Madison (including at Michael’s sister’s house).

For the first time in history (to my knowledge), the Madison offices of my workplace have been declared closed due to weather.  The only exception is critical staff (some areas are open 24/7/365 because of the nature of the business).

I have made oatmeal for breakfast and we are hanging out in front of computers.  Michael is working from home (or at least has his work laptop open and on– it sounds like there’s not much for him to do right now).  Funnily enough, even though I was recently given security to work from home (in certain circumstances), I don’t have access yet to do so.  The office is officially closed, so that probably means I won’t have to burn a day of vacation today.  Works out well enough

Two more weeks of work until more holiday fun begins!  This year, we’re taking a trip to Florida to visit my family.  Mom and Dad are throwing a family reunion the Sunday before Christmas since most of my family hasn’t met my new husband (which is just kind of sad since we’ve been in a relationship since 2003).  We will return just in time to celebrate Christmas in Madison with Michael’s family (minus the Dotzours and the Primes this year).  A couple of days after Christmas I have yet another birthday (probably a low-key one– no plans for this one).

We’re once again throwing a New Year’s party, so that will be a fun and interesting assortment of various friends (local and some non-local) that we don’t see nearly often enough.  I’m missing our out-of-state friends quite a bit, too, and wishing that travel time didn’t make it so difficult to get together.

After that, we may have another post-holiday family gathering to figure out.

We think we have a grasp on how things are and then something changes in our microcosm and we have to make sense of things again.  It could be a seemingly small change or something that is unavoidably big.

Life seems to change, and pause, and change, and there’s no telling how balanced those clusters will be– maybe you’re waiting ambivalently, or excitedly, or maybe you are bored, or enjoying life, or tensely expecting something to happen, or living day-to-day in utter oblivion.

So many human minds have sought over the millenia, what is order and how do we make sense of what we are and what life is?  Let’s make patterns!

But we still don’t know what conclusion to make of all this in the larger schema, so we shape our personal microcosms around patterns that have meaning for us.  Oh, they may change– but it’s the little things in life that are the collection we end up with: the song you sing while you feed your cats, the vacation you take with your family, the time spent.

I have always loved the reassuring quote by Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

In a way, it’s paternalistic and a bit simplistic, and sometimes untrue.  But in occasional moments of fear or panic or despair, it reminds us that we can take positive action to do what we can and focus on that.

Most of you who read this blog have probably heard or may be too far away from Wisconsin to care, but I thought I would mention it in case one or two people who are local and who might be interested don’t already know.

American Players Theatre is having a big sale at their down-the-hill gift shop this Saturday, December 5th (from 10 ’til 5).  Posts on APT’s fan page on Facebook state that all inventory will be discounted 75%.  So if you didn’t feel like paying $40 for a sweatshirt this past summer, you might now buy that same sweatshirt for a trivial $10.  No guarantees about what inventory remains in stock.

It’s a good organization, they do good work, and a little excursion to Spring Green definitely trumps a shopping trip to the mall this time of year.  Thus ends my marketing spiel.