Happy Old Year!

Wow! The year is over already. I've barely gotten used to writing "2009" on cheques, and now I have to break that habit already. Life is rough!

The year did seem go by rather quickly. Maybe that happens when one ages. When I was two, a year took half a lifetime; now it takes a paltry three percent of said lifetime.

Plenty of parties were had this month: church parties, bible study parties, friend parties, family parties. A good new year's resolution might be to not party for a few weeks. Hmmm, I'll have to think on it.


This past weekend we drove south to visit the family. The weather behaved, but that meant a disappointingly green Christmas. It did snow an inch or two a couple of days later, which the kids felt warranted pulling out the snowmobile to boot around for the day.

The annual gift-giving was experienced, plus the annual stuffing of faces with delicious seasonal fare. I bought a keg of beer for the occasion, eliciting plenty of trips outside on the deck.



Little story regarding the deck. It has a number of wooden steps going up to it from the lawn or driveway. At one of these locations the bottom step is missing, so thoughtful souls strung some bailing twine between the posts as a temporary fence to deter people from using those steps. Mom also kindly advised me to steer clear of the missing step.

Problem: this twine doesn't glow in the dark; in fact, it simply can't be seen in the dark. Especially when one travels at speed...

On arriving at the homestead, I was unpacking the car and came upon the 5L keg of beer. Cradling it carefully I approached the house. I headed straight for the closest steps up to the deck, taking a bit of a running leap to clear the missing step.

Well, I remember much wrenching and creaking (as twine and nails lost a battle) and a slight bit of resistance as I sailed along. The twine didn't really slow me down and there I was, standing on the deck, tangled in this twine I hadn't noticed on the way up.

I extricated myself, opened the house door, and held out the unscathed keg. Mission accomplished!

Of course, my sister and her kids had heard the commotion, guessed what had happened, and pretty much killed themselves laughing at the whole situation for far too many hours afterward.

Perhaps this incident and others (the previous victim, some poor lady, got clotheslined in the mouth) might expedite the repair of that infamous step.

Whatever. In the end the brothers-in-law and I enjoyed ice-cold keg beer.



Kids stuffing their faces...



Sister hogging the presents and the dog.



We've had the Christmas tree up and decorated at home, but we really haven't taken the opportunity to enjoy it. I don't mean climbing it, or chopping it down to hollow it out and canoe off into the sunset; I mean just sitting near it with the lights on. The tree is in the living room, where we hardly spend any time. So it will have been up for a month, lights turned on once or twice, then taken down for another year. We could have put presents under it, but neither of us got around to wrapping our gifts for each other so we just handed them over unexcitingly.

While we're on Christmassy stuff, here's Daisy's new sweater.

there's winter

Well, this past week winter finally arrived. Sort of. It snowed for a day, but all we had to show for the storm was a measly 20cm or so. It has snowed again since, not much, but every bit helps. Or is supposed to... it's rather hard to tell whether it does.

Anyway, from now on it should be white/grey here until April and that's all that matters.

December events are well under way. We had our church Christmas program and potluck last week already. We had a white elephant exchange party with friends this past week (where instead of buying gifts you get to give away unwanted junk that's lying around the house); turns out it's a potentially amusing game.

Tonight we're off to another party, sort of a mid-season Bible study soirée. Should be fun... and delicious. The time for gorging lasts only the rest of the month! (Not that I endorse gorging, but considering how little I normally eat, I should feel justified in playing catch-up from the rest of the year.)

Tuesday evening we're going to a Messiah concert downtown. We haven't been to many Messiah performances in a number of years so it was time to go again. I believe every year is simply too often, but that's probably because I overplayed the performance at home (which also means I now have in my head a "standard" performance against which I'm forced to rate all others).

Carrie's leaving me for two days. She's off to Mexico City for two whole days for work; she is the entire Canadian delegation, merely there as a third party in a USA-vs-Mexico case. She considered staying longer to go and see some touristy stuff but decided against it. I suppose our upcoming visit in January (though not to Mexico City) will have to suffice.

Carrie's knitting again. She knit the dog a sweater (I don't want her to make me a sweater but the dog doesn't have that kind of choice); I'll have to post a picture of that shortly.

where's winter

What not to do when going out shopping for four hours on a Saturday morning in late November: leave the door to the house wide open. When we got home it was a balmy 61 degrees in the kitchen (16°C), which felt extra cold but shouldn't since the kitchen temperature is usually only slightly higher at 66. Anyway, good thing we live in an apparently intruder-free neighbourhood.

It doesn't help that our furnace is on the fritz. It doesn't like to turn on, so I turn the main power off and then back on, and it fires up for a bit. After blowing hot air for a few minutes or so it stops. It could be our 1760's-era thermostat or it could be the flame sensor; I dug in there and cleaned the flame sensor and that hasn't helped so I guess we get to try to upgrade the thermostat next. That or call in the furnace service guys, but that's a whole thing. Especially this time of year. Until then, yay for space heaters... if the weather warranted their use.

Well, Boston seems like a recent memory but I guess it's a while ago now. What's next? Mexico! We just bought tickets to Ixtapa for January; we'll be joining Carrie's parents there for a week. Guess I'll have to somehow work my snowboarding schedule around that.

Carrie went to BC a couple of weeks ago; she booked a flight this summer as soon as her first niece was born on her side of the family (hopefully she won't be doing that for all her nieces/nephews!). She didn't miss any lousy weather here though, as she tends to hope for. It was rather balmy here and has been all month. Which isn't great as I've been waiting impatiently for winter since around May.

Bring on the snow please!

Boston

For Thanksgiving weekend we drove down to Boston, Massachusetts with our friends Reuben and Irene. It was mostly fun and we still mostly get along!

We initially thought it wasn't a long weekend for the States, but it turned out to be Columbus Day for them. That didn't actually affect us too much after all, so that was fortunate.

It's about 700km to Boston. We drove down Thursday evening, heading east into Quebec for a few hours before cutting through Vermont and then taking I-93 down through New Hampshire. Not much sightseeing to be done in the dark, which is a shame because it's a beautiful drive in daylight.

We stayed with Irene's relatives just outside of Boston. These wonderful people housed, fed and entertained us, making our trip even more enjoyable.

Friday was "driving around" day because the forecast was for a bit of rain. We drove to Salem, known for its rich history of witch trials and whatnot.


There are several witch museums in town, ranging from historical to hysterical. Tourism is big in Salem, and the historical buildings and sites are interspersed with haunted houses and other Halloween-oriented stuff. October is Halloween month apparently, so we had to decide what was actually permanent as opposed to seasonal.


We avoided most of the tourist traps, but we did do a tour of the Witch House, a misguidingly named museum that was once the home of a magistrate involved in the witch trials 300 years ago.

Salem is also the birthplace of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, whom I'd never heard of. He wrote The Scarlet Letter and House of the Seven Gables, the latter of which I'd never heard of. The latter is also based on an actual building in Salem, which is of course a tourist attraction. We walked by it but didn't go in.

Since I'm not big on history or literature, much of what I learned in Salem has evaporated from my brain. Not because I choose to forget, but because history lessons never seem to stick. Except maybe dates... numbers are fun!

Very near Salem is a town on the ocean called Marblehead; we headed there to check it out. It has an old military fort...


...and a decidedly maritime flavour.



Saturday was Boston day since the forecast was for good weather. We took the subway into the city. First stop: Harvard University!

The thing to do is have one's picture taken while grabbing the foot of John Harvard's statue. So of course some of us had to do it. If you look closely you may notice that the foot is very very shiny. This is of course due to zillions of people touching it every day. Germ alert!


The statue, supposedly depicting John Harvard as the 1638 founder of the university, is sometimes known as the statue of three lies. He didn't actually found the school but merely contributed to it, the statue isn't a likeness of him, and the founding year is actually 1636. But I guess nobody cares.

Oh, and now Carrie can say she went to Harvard Law School!


Reuben and I took a side trip to MIT, the other big-name school in the area. The school facilities and grounds aren't in the least bit spectacular, but Reuben, being employed at an architect firm, wanted to see one of the buildings designed by Canadian architect Frank Gehry. That would be the Stata Center.


I won't mention that the school is suing Gehry's firm for recent problems like a leaky roof.

After catching up with the girls, we embarked on a trolley tour to save us some walking as well as to hear a bit of a history lesson of the city.


We could jump on or off the trolleys at any stop, but the line-ups to get on were often long, so once we acquired a good seat with a view, we settled down for the ride. We were taken past a slew of sites of varying significance, but photo opportunities were limited as leaning out of the trolley was discouraged.


We also went past the Cheers pub associated with the eponymous TV show. Evidently it's unpleasantly busy inside, and what's more, the interior of the bar isn't even the one used in the show! If you've even heard of Cheers. I got a lousy shot of the Cheers sign at an angle from the trolley.


After the tour, we decided to take a walk through Beacon Hill, a very old mostly residential neighbourhood. It was rather reminiscent of some European towns.



As in many old European towns, there isn't much room for cars. People park ridiculously close together, so if you want to park here please do NOT value your bumper's paint job! I wasn't aware, but bumpers exist solely for the purpose of being bumped (which we witnessed on multiple occasions).


So many tiny doorways (still being used, as far as we could tell). Were people this little back then??


Interestingly, the old gas lamp posts are still in use, but instead of having them lit manually every day, they are constantly burning.


Toward evening, we made a reservation at one of many Italian restaurants in the North End. We were to take our hosts out to dinner in appreciation for opening their home to us. To kill some time before dinner we explored Quincy Market, the Faneuil Hall market and the waterfront.

Bleak cityscape:


A little less bleak looking away from the city:


We arrived at the restaurant to find a bit of a crowd. While it's nice to be able to reserve, it's not nice to have to wait outside for almost an hour before being let in; they obviously overbooked. I would say the meal was worth the wait, even if the restaurant itself was a bit crowded.

"Aunt" Jenny.


"Uncle" Joe:


On Sunday we attended the local OPC, complete with a superb preacher and a very informative church history lesson after the morning service. We were then treated to a delicious Thanksgiving dinner at the house. We later took a drive to Cape Ann, hoping to enjoy some scenery before dark.



On Monday it was time to drive home. We stopped at some outlet stores for some shopping; surprisingly, the damage was minimal.

The drive was loooong, but at least it was light out during most of the Vermont section. The fall colours were starting to show, but unfortunately we didn't get many good shots because the best views were seen while zipping along the interstates.


We paused in Montpelier because, well, why not? It's the capital of Vermont; it's also the smallest state capital, with a measly population of 8000. Needless to say there wasn't much to see. Oh, and they pronounce it Mont-PEEL-yer, not quite the way we learned it in school.

Final planned stop: Burlington, Vermont. Carrie had been here before and taken a ferry across Lake Champlain a few years back. We stopped for supper, wondering when we'd be home. Fading fast...


We had at least three choices of border crossings. Legal ones, I mean. We stopped at a rest stop near the border to check the border wait times. Of the two that were posted, we chose the 45-minute wait (the other was 2h45m). The third option would have been in a tiny town a little bit out of way, but we had no way of knowing how many people know about it, so it could have been hit or miss. We ended up waiting an hour at the border, not too unexpected for a long weekend.

Anyway, home sweet home. Too bad our furnace is acting up... brrrrr.

Oh, and thanks for letting me steal some pics, Reub. Let's face it, you're by far the better photographer. You and your dumb "rule of seventeenths" or whatever!