Downtiming the Night Side is a science fiction book about time travel by Jack L. Chalker that's in my collection still waiting to be read. But it's also a superbly apt description of my lifestyle, per se, at this time of year. Momentum and holiday madness manage to propel me through Christmas - barely - and then I go kaput. This "night side" of the year seems to sap all of my energy off into the darkness. I become a virtual tree sloth. Were it possible, I'd pretty much lie in bed and not do much of anything till spring. Alas, life doesn't exactly allow me to do that, much as I try. I have a job to get to, obligations to meet, a blog to write. After all, I know everyone's just dying to hear the latest mundacities (don't look for that word in the dictionary - I had to invent it myself) of my life.
As usual there's not much to tell. Tuesday Dec. 19th I came home and parked as usual. Well, as I suspect a few of you already know, we had a little bit of a blizzard soon thereafter. Fortunately I had no urgent need to go anywhere, what with a well-stocked pantry, plenty of cat food, Christmas shopping completed, and a closed workplace. Of course this put the kibbitz (sp?) on our annual physics dept. Christmas party, but physics departments don't usually throw the wildest parties anyway. Much better is the neighbor's almost-annual Christmas party. And luckily
George and
Peggy live within easy walking distance. My old Landcruiser does pretty good in the snow, but when the snow's above its headlights it just doesn't go anywhere. Personally, I think it's just lazy like I am, and uses the snow depth as an excuse.
As always, I had a great time. As always, I went and hid when they started the Twelve Days of Christmas carol-singing ritual (don't anybody tell them I do this, or they'll come hunt me down next year!). Lots of good food, good spirits (of the C2H5OH kind), good spirits (of the happy people kind), good friends, and good conversation. Except
Dee Dee's husband told me that I reminded him of the character in
A Beautiful Mind. Never having seen the movie, I not sure whether I should have thanked him, or hit him. I guess I'll just have to watch it and take the appropriate action next year.
It seems, though, that some few of them had read my
Misfiring Matchmaking blog. They said they found it side-splittingly funny, but then proceeded to try and push me into getting married and giving me all sorts of matrimonial advice. Sheesh people, if ever a blog screamed "don't take me seriously", it would have been that one! It bordered on outright sillyness!
Even my great-aunt
Genevieve is at it. I received what is only the second Christmas card she's sent me in my entire life, and ended it with "Have you thought about getting married?". Sigh. And someone in response to a comment I made on one of
Allyson Reedy's stories (btw Allyson, if you're reading this, I forgot to say congratulations and good luck!) implied I have fear of commitment. Seriously now, I think I'll have to get over my fear of rejection long before fear of commitment becomes an issue. I don't think I'll bother, though. Women are too emotionally complex for a simple guy like me to deal with anyway, I'm probably better off without one.
Anyway, that was my one outing until Christmas Eve, when the lazy Landcruiser decided the snow had melted down enough that it would voluntarily leave the driveway. Went over to my brother
Colinand sister-in-law
Rebekah's house for dinner, then back to their house Christmas morning for the ritual celebration of raw greed and destruction of wrapping paper that we'd prepared for with much effort and anticipation, the back again to their house for dinner - it's nice that they live close enough I could run home and take a nap, I needed it by then! Don't know why I need so blasted much down time this time of year...maybe I'm storing up energy for the summer.
The day after Colin and Bek and thier wee ones,
Abby and
Lily and I all went to visit my next-door neighbor
Evelyn. Evelyn has been my next-door neighbor since Colin and I were wee ones ourselves, which allowed her to recall an event that I'd completely forgotten about. Or had deliberately blocked from my mind. It wasn't just us kids that defied death by riding objects down her long, steep driveway. She and her late husband
Shelby had this big old Red Cross toboggan, see...
It all went well enough, with just her, my brother and I. But then she managed to coax Dad into hopping into the back end. Well, with his added mass we shot down that hill like a rocket ship on rails - straight into our driveway and aimed dead-on for the cars. Fortunately Dad bailed off just in time to prevent us all from becoming hood ornaments.
We had a lot of fun with that old toboggan, whenever we had deep snows like this. Shelby would hook us up to their nice big 4X4 pickup and tow us around on the deserted roads. Of course every time he came to a turn the toboggan would capsize and send us doing cartwheels through the snow, thus ensuring that we came home thoroughly soak and freezing cold, not to mention somewhat bruised. Oh well. We thought it was a riot, which just goes to show you what nutcases we all were...
Okay, back to the present. Wednesday the 27th saw the nice folks from
Conservation Construction Corp. come out and install eight new double-paned argon-filled windows in the house. They were originally going to come out the previous friday, but decided what with four feet of snow burying the house that maybe they should wait a few days. I gather they took their cue from the Landcruiser. The next morning it was four degrees warmer in the house than it had been the previous mornings all month, and snowing again.
I only got twenty inches the second go-around, but on top of the twenty or so still on the ground I ended up not going anywhere until New Year's day, when Colin and I took Lily to go visit our uncle Dave in Denver. Abby was sick so Bek stayed home with her. This time it took a little shoveling before I could coax the 'cruiser out of the driveway. I hate when that happens.
Anyway it's about time for me to go see if I can get out of that snow bank I parked in, and head home. So I'll wrap this up with the best thing I got for Christmas - I got a lot of nice things, but the best present of all was a copy of Colin's latest book manuscript, hopefully soon to be a major best-seller! Good work, little brother! Now if I hurry, I might be able to make it home in time to squeeze in a nap before bedtime.