d i n a n e . n e t 

In case you cared, which I doubt severely, I will be no where near a computer after today for pretty much the balance of the year. I might check my email on the 31st. But before then, I’ll be in lands where they either have only dial-up or have no internets at all. And I’m okay with that. It is sometimes awesome to unplug.

The plan? Christmas at Mike’s family in the middle of nowheresville Vermont followed by a snow-mountain trip to the middle of nowheresville Maine. The winter break from the world ends with a party in the middle of armpitsville Massachusetts (a.k.a. “The Woo” or it’s given name “Worcester” which is pronounced with only two syllables: “wuh-steh”). Fortunately the hosts of said party live up to a standard far above the average of armpitsville. I expect classiness of all types.

This afternoon I pick up Kate at the airport and never look back. I’m keeping a close eye on her flight using this here collection of tubes, which should keep me paranoid for the remainder of today. I’m also doing a fair amount of work despite the fact that it is the last day before my longest vacation since I started this job. Work does not disappear just because you wish it would, folks.

The Christmas presents are all wrapped and under… around… all over the place relating to the tree. Mike and I have very different wrapping styles. He goes for the put paper on it until you can’t see what it is then stick a sticker label on there theory. It works for him. I, however, enjoy making ribbons into bows and last year’s Christmas cards into labels. I probably did rush through a couple of the less-than-cubular items, but I think my perfectionism can forgive me. I mean, really, how is one supposed to wrap something that is vaguely triangular from one angle and kinda square from another with rounded corners and little to no structure. I mean, seriously, squishy things are the roughest.

I hope we don’t leave anything behind.

I just checked up on the weather, and while I do not trust weather.com as far as I can throw it (and really, I can’t throw things particularly far), I do hope they are right about at least part of this forecast:

By Sunday, Christmas Eve, the front will have cleared the eastern seaboard, leaving behind a few snow showers across far northern New England.

On Monday, Christmas Day, a new storm system will begin approaching from the south. This will bring rain showers into the southern Mid-Atlantic. There is some potential that a storm could organize off the Mid-Atlantic Coast Christmas night into Tuesday, perhaps bringing snow to parts of the Northeastern States.

I, for one, am dreaming of a White Christmas.