Nollaig Shona Dhuit

Here we are with a Christmas Eve all our own.  It's remarkable to consider that the most pressing issue is when to have the Monopoly game.  The accumulated stress of the past few weeks seems to have been dispatched.  Number One Son is fooling around with Minecraft, I am posting here, and Doctor Professor Wife is away with Number One Daughter buying more things to eat.

It's quiet here.  There's only the occasional whimpering of Tamaroa and the scraping of his nails on the backdoor as he tries to convince one of us to let him out.  He can forget it.  Between he and Kona it's been a revolving door of dogs all afternoon.  They want out, they bark a little, then they scrape on the door to come back in.  The fifteen minutes later it's out they want.  Not gonna do it.  I want to enjoy my inertia.  It's well earned.  Go lie down you damn fool hound!

Now and again I here a dog outside barking, and both of ours rush to the back door and start scraping away at it.  Futilely.  

We're not driving anywhere either, until Boxing Day.  We don't have to suffer the brutality of people convinced they are late as they fly down the highways an byways of coastal California.  No giant SUVs piloted by crazed parents, driven mad by family pressures and their jobs so that they have forgotten the amazing feeling I am experiencing now.

Our travel comes in a couple of days when we head into the hazy south of the Golden State for a New Year's visit to the Land of Dreams.  By then it usually happens that traffic is light.  It's between holidays and no one is rushing home yet.  If luck holds, we'll face no terrible weather in the savage Tehachipis, where they never should've built a road.  It's rugged country and driving that stretch of I-5 is no pleasure.  There is magnificent, day dream inducing scenery but I can't look at it except in brief glances if the car in front of us is many lengths head.  I have to mind the other drivers all going as fast as possible hoping not to be caught by the CHP.  It feels endless even though it isn't really far at all between Grapevine and the northwestern reaches of the LA Basin, our destination.  I have a brief flicker of hope as we pass the Anheuser Busch brewery in the north end of the San Fernando Valley.  It reminds me that cold beer awaits at Mother in Law's house.  There is after all a small immediate reward for the six hours of I-5.

Once there, I deliver myself into the Hands of Fate as determined by my children, my wife, and other members of her family who inhabit or are visiting the region.  I can count on BJs pizza with it's excellent beer, Islands where I can get a decent fish taco, and good home cooking at Mother In Law's house.  Kids will be entertained, coffee will be consumed, movies watched in the dead of night after kids have gone under, weight gained to be lost after returning to our East Bay Suburb . . . all in the service of happy holidays for everyone.  Every ounce of extra weight, every "BLORT!" that issues from my distended midsection, every minute of Southern CA sunshine will be worth it.

We are as lucky as the day is long to be able to look forward to all of that.  Here's hoping everyone can have times when stress, strain, fear and disillusion is replaced by hope, encouragement and happiness, and that those times go on and on and on.

Peace and Merry Christmas to all!