Hello everybody. What’d I miss?
I just got back from the frozen Northeast last night at midnight, and this is the first I’ve been able to check the boards for almost a week. I have a lot of catching up to do, but before I slog through everything here, I thought I’d just offer this, for what it’s worth…
What I Did On My Christmas Vacation by Jack Batty
The flight out to Logan was fairly un-traumatic. The first bit of shock was stepping outside for a smoke in Cleveland. 2 friggin’ degrees. The last fresh air I had was San Francisco’s comparably balmy weather. I thought my lips were going to fall off.
We made it into Logan airport ok, and we were in and out of Alamo Rent-A-Car within 15 minutes. At that point we fired up the ol’ Chevy Shit-box, I mean Metro, and headed toward Montpelier VT at 11:30 pm East Coast time. By the time we got to Manchester NH, I couldn’t see ten feet in front of the car from the blizzard. Up to that point I hadn’t even seen snow for two years, now I was up to my tuchus in it. A brief motel stay and 4 hours of sleep saw us ready for the final assault on Mont P.
Solstice with the In-laws
My wife’s mother and step-dad no longer celebrate Christmas choosing rather to recognize the Winter Solstice. This was fine by me especially considering Shrimp Rio, which was served for Solstice dinner and heartily wolfed down by yours truly. Afterward we retired to my brother-in-laws tiny little woodstove-heated cabin in the woods for drink and song. We had your average hippie-style communal drum circle around a bon-fire accompanied by a guitar or two - great fun.
Christmas shopping in Burlington greeted us with more blizzard conditions, but the mission objective was reached within budget. Later that evening my wife and I had a wonderful dinner with friends at Julio’s in Montpelier followed by a laconic viewing of Titus starring Anthony Hopkins - I still haven’t completely figured it out.
The trip to Maine
Finally we had good travel weather and the Metro got us to Maine just in time for my sister’s Christmas party. This was truly a wonderful time with family and some friends whom I hadn’t seen in quite some time. We also met a great couple from Latvia. The wife of said couple works for my sister as a nanny and the husband is a lawyer who seemed full of wonder for America as well as respect for his home country. I look forward to continuing our friendship with them.
My kids! yay!
Mrs. Batty and I had a great pre-Christmas afternoon visit with my twins. We talked and played and had a great afternoon. They are 8 now, and so seemingly mature. No crying, no tantrums, and decent understanding of the situation at hand. You haven’t played a good game of Simon Says until you’ve played it with my kids … “Simon Says pretend your a monkey … Simon Says act like a mom … Simon Says float in the air…” pretty metaphysical for 8-year-olds.
Later that evening we spent Christmas Eve at my sister-in-laws beach house at Higgins Beach, right on the water - what a great view. Now my sister-in-law runs a restaurant in Portland, and she raided the kitchen for dinner - turkey, roast beef, rack of lamb, sausage, lobster tails, mashed potatoes, gravy, broccoli, corn, etc. I felt like Henry the VIII. I couldn’t even move by bedtime, I was so stuffed.
Christmas…
7:00am - straight back to my kids’ house with a sack full of presents. From then on it was pretty much a flurry of wrapping paper and ribbon thrown about the room after which I finally got to play with all their toys. My son got one of those cyber-dogs, but we could figure out how to make the damn thing sit. My daughter got more Barbie stuff than she knows what to do with (that Barbie Beetle is pretty cool).
Back to my sister’s house that afternoon for more presents - giving and receiving. The gifts Mrs. Batty and I got for everyone hit the respective nails on the head. We seemed to have been inspired and got the perfect (affordable) gifts for all. Then the big moment came - what’s in that big box over there? - That’s right our very own DVD player! I know Christmas isn’t really about material possessions, but its a FRIGGIN’ DVD PLAYER!! Just what I wanted.
The Day After Christmas…
We managed to get back up to see my kids for a lengthy visit. My parents and sister and her kids made it up for a regular family reunion. Despite the lure of Pokemon, my kids loved to see their “other” grandparents. By late afternoon, the twins were a little burnt out (as were my wife and I). We hugged and kissed them good-bye and left for the final night in Brunswick.
We stayed up till two in the morning playing 45 (a card game) with my parents and swigging Corona beer (my sister’s choice, not mine).
The Flight Home
Our flight left Logan at 5:30pm, so we actually got to sleep in. Everything on the way home was fairly okee-dokee. Unfortunately I was so frantic about not missing our flight, I left my house keys in the rental car. We had to break into our apartment when we got home.
So here it is the first day of my impending unemployment. I’ve already watched my first movie on the DVD. At the moment I’m listening to my new Beatles CD (1[number one hits]). Now I’ve got a few phone calls to make, some resumes to put out, threads to check out and maybe even a nap to take.
So, in conclusion, it’s nice to be back and I hope everybody had a good holiday. If you made it all the way through my little essay, you are truly a hardy soul.
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