Weekend Werind: Back to Base Camp

December 28, 2008

The missus and I finally made it back to the homestead tonight, just in time for a few short hours’ sleep and a full day’s work tomorrow.

Out. Effing. Standing.

In the meantime, I promised a Weekend Werind, and I aim to deliver. Come hell, high water, canceled flights (had one of those) or looming colds (developing one of those as we type, it appears), we are going to have a stroll through the archives tonight.

“If we wind up with a school bus or the fricking Wienermobile in ’12, I won’t be especially surprised.”

A short stroll, perhaps. And you probably don’t want to stroll in my general vicinity, what with the sneezing and coughing and post-nasal drip and all. But we’re strolling, damn it. We will stroll.

And tonight, it seems prudent to take that constitutional in the neighborhood of the post I won’t be writing tonight, but which would be the post I’d write, were I to write a post tonight from scratch. Only I’ve already written it, which is tremendously convenient, since, as I mentioned, I’m not going to write it.

Follow that? Me, neither. It’s quite possible the NyQuil is attacking my neurons instead of the cold germs. Stupid over-the-counter placebo crap.

At any rate, I’m happy to be back home after the annual Christmastime trip, but haven’t the energy, the will, nor the ability to remain upright long enough to tell you exactly how happy. So instead, I’ll tell you how happy I was four years ago at just about this time, in a post from New Year’s Eve, 2004:

Home at Last, Home at Last

If you care to delve that far into the past, you’ll find a photo essay (including really, really crappy thumbnail pics) and ten things that I most appreciated upon returning back to Chez Charlie. Four years later, and the list is still pretty darned accurate. Sure, the connection speeds are better now at my folks’ and in-laws’ places — Santa finally put DSL on his list for those houses, thank Rudolph — but mostly, nothing much has changed. I still won’t feel clean until a nice hot shower in my own bathroom, I still can’t imagine how people in this world (many of which I’m related to, apparently) live without TiVo, and the car rental places still can’t keep our reservation straight.

(Back in ’04, they switched out our compact request for a pickup truck. This time, it was a PT Cruiser.

If we wind up with a school bus or the fricking Wienermobile in ’12, I won’t be especially surprised.)

But mostly, I’m just glad to be back, and about to spend a restful night in my own bed. It’s good to see the family, but it’s also good to be back where the heart is. And the clean clothes. And a familiar mattress.

(Also, the TiVo. Seriously. After a week of live TV, I was starting to get the shakes. It’s like one long commercial with the occasional twenty seconds of show scattered in. It’s like living in caveman times. Yeesh.)

So that’s it for me. After a long travel day to get back to home, sweet home, I’m off to bed, sweet bed. G’night, and g’weekend.