There and Back Again

I left home and went home; then after a few days, I came home again. Brief impressions:

I left sunny L.A. with temperatures in the 60s and low 70s, and palm trees swaying in the breeze, and flew to sunny Miami, with lower-than-usual humidity and temperatures in the 60s and low 70s as palm trees swayed in the breeze--those that weren't knocked over by the hurricanes. Even though Florida wasn't hit nearly as badly as the gulf coast states, still there was plenty of damage--both my dad's and my mom's houses had considerable landscaping damage, and piles of debris still waiting to be carted away; those trees still standing had been severely pruned because of branch damage. (Hard woods had a harder time than the more supple palms.) There were lines of trees along the road where it seemed every other one had been knocked down, and crews were still slowly working their down, standing and replanting these trees. At one point I drove past a housing development and wondered why anyone would build houses with blue roofs, before Mom pointed out that they were all FEMA-issued blue tarps.

Dad's house is slowly emptying--my sister was out of town for the first few days of my visit, getting herself established in Gainesville as she transfers to a new school; and in the next few months it is reasonable to assume that my brother will be moving out as well. The population at Mom's house, however, has at last stabilized: two people, three indoor cats and three outdoor cats. For a while there the cat population seemed to be exploding, but everything seems to have settled for a while.

My long losing streak at last ended. For years--since roughly 1986--every time I have attended a sporting event, the home team has lost. The Red Sox at Fenway, the Cubs at Wrigley, the White Sox at the new Comiskey, the Blackhawks at the United Center, every single time: if I went, they lost. But my brother had tickets to a Florida Panthers game (against the Buffalo Sabres), and for various reasons we couldn't get there till the game was already half over--and the Panthers were up 3-0. Barely two minutes after I sat down (with excellent 14th row seats) the Sabres scored, and I got that sinking feeling. But the game was already half over, which may be the key--there wasn't really time for the Panthers to crash dramatically. In the end the score was 4-1, and my losing streak had been snapped. That is very happy news--now maybe I can bring myself to go to a Dodgers game.

I drove my brother's new Hummer H3 and was actually impressed--that behemoth (which is actually smaller than an Expedition) handles very nicely, and has a very impressive turning radius, not to mention gas mileage that isn't so much worse than my little Subaru. Now if only I could convince him that having a DVD player/display in the front seat isn't such a great idea...

Lots of nice presents, given and received; quality time spent with everyone; and my sister had a spectacularly good idea, but I can't talk about it here because--well, because I can't talk about it here. Now I'm home and life is already back to normal--but with weeks of good cheer to come, what with the books to read, the music to listen to, the DVDs to watch. Life ain't so bad this particular yuletide.