Thursday

So this has just been a week where I have been consistently out of my routines.  I'm guessing that such is the case with lots of folks this time of year, but I was caught a little off-guard.  Before I knew it, days were gone.  The wine inventory was down.  And the blog was collecting cobwebs.  My apologies to the peanut gallery.

My pal Roy's mother passed away Saturday morning.  The funeral was yesterday.  93 years old.  24-hour, 365-day in-home care for the last 15 or so years.  She's been bed-ridden for around 10 years, and totally off the mental reservation for the last 3-4 years.  I never knew her very well.  But Roy has very fond memories of her from growing up, and he was very close to her.  Maybe another reason why he and I get along so well.

3 has begun the fam's own version of the Christmas journey (a la, the biblical verse, "In those days , a decree went out from Caesar Augustus...").  At this moment she's trying to find an air-worthy plane out of LaGuardia for her scheduled afternoon direct flight to MSP.  2 and SRH are planning to depart from here early tomorrow morning, and 4 and I are to meet up in DSM tomorrow evening to ride together the rest of the way to 1.01's home.  Lots of moving parts to make FFF a reality.  Here's hoping that the weather cooperates.

So this makes 4 Daughter of the Day as it is her Tax Birthday.  Hope you have a good shift at the station, Kiddo, and don't stay out too late after work.  You have a loooong day ahead of you tomorrow!  (I edited-out the rougher side of this pic to protect the innocent!)

I actually have already completed a couple of Christmas shopping tasks.  And I was tempted to make another stop at lunch, but the traffic was so bad that I quickly lost interest.  The concept of a left turn across traffic is pretty much a lost cause this time of year.  Ingress and egress routes to some of these smaller shopping centers reflect the short-comings of our engineering schools.

Our office is closed tomorrow.  The markets are closed.  It's the national holiday for Christmas.  That makes sense.  If one of the major holidays falls on a Saturday, they normally close offices on the prior Friday.  And if the holiday is Sunday, Monday is the off day.  Interestingly, the banks are open until noon tomorrow.  They are almost never open when the markets are closed.  A bit of a brain teaser.

Maybe more here later.

BCOT