After a week of family love and fun, of (mostly) sunshine and warmth, and fabulous food including fresh orange juice and raspberries every morning, the return to the land of snow and cold is not all that pleasant. Fortunately,
Himself is here to purr me into a fairly good mood. Having a day to recalibrate was essential, and knowing that after working Monday I had Tuesday off also helped. Meanwhile, let's revisit the trip, shall we? I took lots of pictures!
When I got up for my awfully early flight a week ago, I was surprised to find that 3 AM is not actually darker than 6 AM. It
feels so much earlier, shouldn't it
look different? In any case, last Sunday I was up and out by 4, which was only worth it for a trip like this. The morning went fine, actually, and even the GPS's attempt to throw me off by proclaiming that I was arriving at the near-airport parking on the
right, about a tenth of a mile before the actual location on the
left, didn't mess with me too badly (I
thought it was on the left). Shuttle to airport, check; line to check bag and line through security both long but moving; through security and to the gate before boarding started. Onto the plane and out with the knitting, check! (I messed up the first row I did on the shawl, though, and had to tink and re-do. Perhaps complicated row of lace at 6 AM was not the best idea.)
By 7:30, this was the view out the plane window:
See the white line about a third of the way from the bottom? Click the photo to see it bigger. Another plane was going much faster than we were!
As I
mentioned Saturday, the seat next to mine was empty, which was a great thing. I so appreciate the elbow room, as well as extra space to stretch out in. The knitting proceeded, snacking and half-heartedly watching TV, and by 9:15, we were swinging out over Sanibel and into the airport.
I was met by my mother, and much happiness was felt. We had time to claim my suitcase before going to wait for my brother, whose plane came in about half an hour after my mine. Perfect! We headed for an early lunch at a favorite spot. Not a hot day, but warm enough to eat outside, and on the way out, we saw this boat on a trailer.
Depth Wish--great name for a boat!
In the afternoon, we did the
unpacking, catching-up, hanging-out thing, and opened a few presents. A few on Christmas Adam, a few on Christmas Eve, and the rest on Christmas. Why not?
As it happened, I'd found t-shirts for both of them, and both were opened Sunday; on Monday they each wore their shirts, which was flattering.
For my brother, the IT guy:
His current job is a temp one, and is not a great fit (he described it as feeling like a cat in a room full of dogs), but hopefully he'll find a job in 2013 that would appreciate this shirt, even if they didn't want him actually wearing it to work. (It's the IT people I think it would amuse; the lawyers, noticeably less so.)
[Another shirt he wore last week, by the way, is one of the few non-black shirts you'll ever see him in. Isn't this awesome?
I always knew those giant squid had a sneaky sense of humor.]
For my mother, who loves her island life:
We love visiting her island life, for sure, and enjoyed a long walk on the beach in the afternoon. What better way to exercise on Christmas Eve? I would have loved to know what this sculpture meant to the one who made it.
Just art, perhaps, but there might be more. The meaning of this one,
on the other hand, is hardly ambiguous:
Snow man in the sand = sandman? He isn't what I pictured when I heard of the sandman as a kid!
Christmas Eve featured my first wearing of the latest socks, which
I mentioned I'd finished. They're especially bright in a sunny state:
The usual
Skyp pattern, Knit Picks Felici yarn in colorway Fizz. Very much fraternal twins, which doesn't bother me. My mother kept me company with some bright socks of her own:
Aren't we a pair? So to speak.
It was another good day, and closed with a beautiful sunset.
Well done, mother nature.
Going back to feet, my mother wore her new snuggly slipper-sock-footwear things, a gift from my brother, on Christmas morning. Don't they look comfy and cheery?
And going back to yarn (via knitted socks, of course), my brother found me this fun yarn:
Which actually comes in two parts, so you can easily make your socks match. Neat!
It's even part of the Cat Print collection, how perfect is that? I got lots of other great things too, not that we were trying to make it a big year since the traveling was the gift. But we can't resist a few things, can we? Like a Bruins Tervis tumbler, for instance. Love it!
Or how about a fun frame with a picture of my Pan and Harold snuggled up?
My mother's friend is an artist, and gives me these beautiful note cards of her work. They're great for so many occasions, and I was running low, so I'm glad to have more.
Then there are the books, of course. Wonderful vistas to explore!
And calendars: my aunt sent a great one of Hawaii, such beautiful pictures, and my mother gave me ... well,
I understand why she gave me a 2011 calendar, but I suppose it mightn't make sense to you, going into 2013.
I bought it for myself for 2011, and it was so cute that at the end of last year, instead of throwing it into the recycling, I sent it to my mother for her to see first. She liked it so much that she put it up, as a sort of art (since of course the calendar functionality is now ... misleading). She gave it back to me, and next year I'll give it back to her! Hey, the best family traditions make no objective sense.
We only went for a short beach walk on Christmas, having eaten so much at dinner that mere motion took some time to achieve. Immediately after eating, I was afraid to bend over! Dinner was so good, and I ate far too much of it. The walk was almost a defensive move, to try to get the blood flowing again. And it was quite photogenic!
For instance, this palm tree:
What ...
is that, hanging down off it?
Some sort of Muppet wig? Weird.
Then there was this odd instance of British English, something I've learned to watch out for at work.
Spelling error! (Thanks to JEKC for pointing out that in this case, Brits and Americans both spell the word "expense".)
I wonder if it was an actual mistake, or just a British person requesting the sign, who didn't realize we use "expense" in this country?
Presumably not the same person who walked on the newly tarred driveway down the street. Ow! That had to have hurt, unless the feet in question were tough as leather.
It wasn't the sunset of the night before, but it's still beautiful. This was when we got to the beach:
As the sun lowered, the birds headed for home.
In the other direction, it didn't look as late.
Light is a funny thing.
Some birds were diving for their dinners.
Just lovely, isn't it? On the way home, we saw a Florida-style Christmas decoration:
Some places just light the trunk, which must be easier but is far less impressive than the whole tree.
On Boxing Day, the beach walk was taken slightly earlier and showed more active water.
We saw a great old car, early 60s, at a shopping center.
Just the sort of fun thing you see around every corner! Like this, at the store, which amused me:
The last few nights, we watched home movies. Most of them I remember watching before, so they were fun but not surprising, but there were two surprises. One was a tape that had been my aunt's, and showed my uncle's bar mitzvah over 60 years ago, and other shots of amazing who-is-that-ness. The other was one of ours that as a child I apparently wouldn't sit still for, since it showed my brother as a baby and how boring was that? Now that I've grown somewhat, I was willing to watch it, and after seeing my brother learning to walk and all, we discovered that later on the tape were bits that were chronologically after the more familiar scenes, ending with a dance party--my brother, my father, and me--demonstrating our collective complete lack of rhythm to, my brother assures me*, Aerosmith's Come Together. We were crying with laughter watching it! I can't imagine how my mother held the camera steady at the time.
*
He didn't remember that it was recorded, but he remembered the event itself, which I did not.
I'm going to smile every time I think of that.
We ate lunch outside on Friday, in the sun, which felt wonderful. And Saturday, before it was time to leave for the airport, we squeezed in one last beach walk.
Have a few shells, eh? I have to get a picture of the ones I brought home, not a ton, but some nice ones: I had to rinse them here, since there wasn't time to do it there before leaving. This time, I saw sunset on the plane, instead of sunrise.
I had a bit of a headache Saturday afternoon, perhaps because it's so hard to leave, and thus was in a position to learn that flying with a migraine is miserable. My ears didn't want to pop, and for a while I thought I was going to cry with how much it hurt. Eventually I found that although swallowing, yawning, and manually popping them wasn't enough, chewing did the trick. Whew! I was again very very happy to have an empty seat next to me. The head didn't clear until well after I got home.
And though the forecast Saturday night was for snow in Boston, it was rain when I got in, and until I was driving home. Yes, snow welcomed me to my door. Lovely.
So now we're caught up. Can you believe it, 2013? That sounds so fake.
