Holidays, travels, and storms

It was a busy holiday season. Like I mentioned in my previous post, we spent Christmas here on the island. It was even quieter than normal in town. A serious challenge was to get Christmas gifts to the island in time for the big day. We had some rain the week before which delayed shipment of a number of packages we were expecting. Christmas Eve we hung the stockings by the front door (with care), and left milk and cookies under the tree. Christmas day the temperature was close to 75. The Things ran around outdoors in shorts (when they weren't playing with their new Gamecube or board games or Legos). It was definitely different that other Christmases we've had, but it was fun.

Later that week we left for the East coast. On top of a trip to visit Grammy and Grandpa Nelson, we finally sold our house (hooray!) and had to get the remaining items out of the garage. Our flight out of LA was delayed by 1 hr, but Southwest held our connection in St Louis. We arrived at BWI at about 1am, and still had to drive to Delaware, finally getting to my folks' place at 3am. (Which really was only midnight California time :) ) Fortunately, we didn't have to go down to Maryland until Monday. Sweetie and I drove down, met the new owners (very nice people), took a load of stuff to the dump (well, refuse transfer station), and sold our station wagon (back down to two cars!). That evening we had dinner with a former colleague of Sweetie's. The Things stayed with Grammy and Grandpa and Aunt Naomi and went to the Brandywine River Museum (quite an adventure in GPS navigation, as I'm told).

It was cold in Delaware (20-30), and we now have little in the way of warm clothes. The Things enjoyed seeing Buster (formerly our cat) again, whacking the ice on the fish pond with sticks, and spreading toys all over the living room. Too soon it was time to return. It's an odd thing, but now the sight that makes me feel like "whew, we're home" is not the house, or the island, but as we drive south on the 110 and come over the rise and see the field of cargo cranes at the Port of LA.

Traveling on the ferry in the off season is like old home week. There's rarely anyone you don't know (or at least have seen around town) coming across to Two Harbors. So it's very friendly, and then when the ferry docks, many other people you know are waiting on the pier for the people on the boat, so it's a very social time.

Too soon we were traveling again. We were just getting adjusted to 2008, when news of the tragic death of Sweetie's 19-year-old nephew arrived. And it arrived in a typically screwed-up island way. Workers had been scheduled to sandblast and paint a water storage tank near town. It happened that the tank was right next to the local cell phone tower. So they cut power to the cell phone tower so the workers wouldn't be 'irradiated'. All cell phone coverage on the West End was out for a month. So when Sweetie's mom tried to call, she couldn't get through. She had to leave voice mail on my work phone to let us know. Then I had to drive back into town to tell Sweetie and bring her back to the lab so she could use a land line to call back. It was horrible. A trip was quickly arranged for us all to go to the services. The one bright spot in this terrible weekend was that the Things got to see and play with their cousins. We'll miss you Taylor.

Finally, I'd like to say that the rainy season is really living up to its name this year. So far in January we've gotten more rain that we did all last year. I'd like to thank those who have sent email inquiring as to how we've been doing in all this, and I'd like to apologize for not answering those emails. We're doing just fine, so far. Mud slides are not a danger where we are, and the biggest problem has been worries about whether the road to Avalon will be open for us to get groceries or get to Cub Scout meetings or catch a ferry. We have had some limbs down in town (stupid eucalyptus trees), and last weekend an 80-ft yacht was blown so hard it dragged its anchor, crashed into two other boats and then wrecked on the shore. I'll try to post a picture of that. It's impressive.

So that's a bit of a catch-up on doings here. I'll try to be better about posting more frequently, but most of you know me well enough to know how likely that is. :)

Next up: Doings at work, etc.