Ho HO Ho

A belated Merry Christmas!! I spent the day traveling to Seattle, waking to begin my journey at 3:00am (with a little help from Wiley). 'Twas a long day, but the flights couldn't have gone smoother, crowds weren't bad, people were generally friendly tho' clearly tired (I think some were amongst those trapped over the last few days).

In Seattle, my folks sent up a limo service to pick me up at the airport because the snow was so bad. Nice big Town Car. The driver of which I managed to insult 5 minutes out - when I asked where he was from, he said "near Mt. Ararat" to which I resonded", "Oh, Turkey?" Which technically is a fine answer...unless your driver is Armenian. Yep, I'm a trained anthropologist I am.

Around the airport the streets were perfectly clear. I thought my folks were perhaps beginning to lose their minds and/or I was a little orphaned girl, because the airport and I-5 were fine.

But a sleet mixture began to intensify as we approached Seattle, and literally as we drove up the off ramp, the snow was coming down in earnest. But that wasn't the amazing part - it's the streets. Imagine the amount of snow we've had in the midwest, but never plowed or salted or sanded. And with giant hills. I've lived in New England, Colorado, and Chicago-land, and I've never seen anything like this.

The long and the short of it, we got about a block from my sister's house and got hopelessly stuck. So I pulled the bags out of the car, called my father and brother-in-law to help, and a few neighbors kicked in. Took about an hour to get the guy free. The amazing part (beyond the mess of the streets) is that NO ONE has anything for snow - Sand? Kittie litter? Snow shovels - nope. My father cleaned off my sister's driveway with a big board. It's almost like this white stuff on the ground is an alien invader ;-)

Had a GREAT dinner with the family and some friends, opened gifts, drank awesome wine (my brother-in-law often brings out these fantastic bottles of wine to try, I ask where I can get some, and the answer is invariably, oh, you can't anymore. Grrrrr) So I drink and be merry, cuz' they are delicious.

Alas, about 8 pm, as people were sitting around talking, I started doing the head-bob thing. So I went to bed early, before embarrassing myself by drooling or snoring in the middle of someone's sentence ;-)

HOpe you had a Merry Christmas as well!