Head South for Winter

Just as the seasonal clock struck Winter, it was time for me to head home. My flight was scheduled to leave the Portland Airport at 3 on Monday, and I wanted to get there by noon (in expectation of long lines), so I left home at 9 am. After a fretful goodbye to Luna (fretful on her part, but she was satiated with a bone), I packed up my car and left. About 20 miles north of Eugene, it started snowing quite a bit. Then the snow was sticking. Then there was ice, and I was beginning to just see snow. It was about this time that everyone started driving slowly, so I decided to pull over and put my chains on. After a few F bombs, I managed to get them on and only cut hand a little in the process.

After a 4.5 hour trip, an accidental detour through downtown Portland (where I almost got stuck in a snowdrift of three feet), I made it to the airport! The lines at the Southwest counter were painfully long, but my airline, American Airlines, had no lines. Since I had extra time (my flight had been delayed an hour), I stopped to eat half a sandwich. Then I geared up for what I expected to be an hour wait in the security check. But the long line I assumed was for security was actually a wraparound from United's cancellation line. There was no line for security.

The rest is your typical flight situation. Very few AA flights left Portland, and evidently 300 travelers were stranded (although I had heard at one point 3,000....). I am *so* glad I was not one of them. The picture below is of the horizon around sunset over the clouds. The big white dot is Polaris .

My first day in Texas was pretty good. I spent most of it at my sister's house playing with my niece, and then Mom and I went to Mijo's to eat dinner with my brother and his family. Then I passed out for 2 hours, and proceeded to watch TV like it ain't no thing. I finally stopped halfway through that awful movie "Here on Earth."

When I came into my room to read and sleep, I saw Lexie neatly tucked into my suitcase. That little beast has lost about 15 pounds and is as spry as ever. And still does terribly cute things evidently.

Tomorrow I make an apple and pecan pie, help get ready for Christmas and put up lights in the yard. They're blue, so maybe we can pretend we're Jewish and celebrating Hannukah. That way it'll be ok to leave them up for a few extra days.