Day: December 26, 2002

George: “Whackos in Minivans”

George writes about his and Becky’s experience driving back from Vermont to Massachusetts in the middle of the Christmas snowstorm last night:

We started the morbid road game of tracking the whackos passing us at 50+ mph.  Not just SUVs, add minivan drivers to that list.  We watched a minivan fly by, only to see them off the road in the median about 10 minutes later.  A 3-4 hour trip turned out to be 7, but we made it home.

I’ve had a few trips like that one. One with my parents from southeast Virginia up to Lancaster County, PA, and one a few years back from northern Virginia to Lakewood, New Jersey. What should have been a four hour trip was about twelve hours, starting with two hours to travel fifteen miles on the beltway. Needless to say, I was quite happy not to be driving anywhere in snow this year. We’ve even had respite from the rain out here.

Presentses, my precious

Almost forgot. I gave Lisa a few presents this year to make up for a couple B-school Christmases without: an All-Clad 8 quart pot, a Cuisinart mini-prep, and a couple books on dogs to make up for the fact that we didn’t manage to get any puppies under the tree. We’re still working on finding a breeder for the Bichon Frise puppies she wants to get.

Emptier house

I just got back from taking my parents and sister to the airport. It feels weird not having a totally full house. Lisa’s folks will be here for another week, so we’ll be able to taper off slowly.

Now that our five-guest experiment is back to two, I can report it was mostly a success. One thing we figured out a few days in is that it’s a lot harder to get seven people moving in the morning than two or four. We had a long list of activities, but each morning by the time everyone ate breakfast and showered it was almost time for lunch.

We’re off to do a bit of after-Christmas shopping. Should be fun, he said grimly.