May all your winter holidays be as warm and bright as mine

Twenty-six years ago, today, willshetterly and coffeeem called and asked if I'd like to drive to Menominee to help rescue Jerry Boyjian, dd_b, and pameladean. Their van had broken down on the freeway in the bitter cold of the night before, and they were holed up at the appropriately-named Holiday Inn.

I needed to wrap Christmas presents, and thought they meant the Menominee in Michigan, but I still said "sure, I'm in." It turned out to be the much closer Menominee, the one in Wisconsin, but icy roads kept our speed in the 20-25 mph range and the expedition proved an adventuresome way to spend pretty much the entirety of Christmas Eve day. Jan Appelbaum, Karen Johnson, and I brought Jerry to Minneapolis while Will & Emma took Pamela and David down to Northfield.

I have presents that need wrapping this year, too, and I'm about to set out for Menominee, WI, and points well beyond it. There's probably even snow falling from Black River Falls all the way into Chicago, but I'll be warm and bright all the way there because I'm carrying the sun in my car.

Many thanks to galaticvoyeur and mmagidow for rescuing the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars from the back yard of Toad Hall in the spring of 2004 and giving pieces of the sculpture a haven ever since. Many thanks to davidschroth for providing the quick and ready helping hand that Jeff said to bring this morning.

Perspective makes such a difference. I drove on this trip specifically so I could bring the sun back to Toad Woods with me at the end of the trip. The storms and brutal cold prevented the Sunday pick-up I had hoped to make, and it was in doubt until this morning whether it would come east with me at all. Now that it's safely in my car, I find I don't mind the prospect of today's drive nearly as much as I did when I thought I'd be making it sunless.

May the sun's warmth and brightness lighten these last 7 days of 2008, and all the days that follow in 2009 and long beyond even that improbable year.

(2009? How the heck did that get so close? And how did 1982 come to be 26 years ago?)

Much love, all around, forever. (For human values of forever, anyway.) The sun makes that possible. That, and so much more.

On Christmas Eve...

Merry Christmas tomorrow to all who treasure the magic and the joy of the day.

Safely in Chicago... [redux]

The sun did its thing and helped clear the road for all but about 20 miles of the trip. I don't know quite what to say about those solar winds, though....

There were some slick spots to watch out for, especially when the aforementioned winds kicked in. The miles between Janesville and Beloit were officially Not Fun. During the entire 400 miles, I saw two semis and about six cars in ditches. The first semi was a double-trailer FedEx truck. The second a single-trailer unmarked truck that had fully jack-knifed. One of the cars was freshly in the median ditch in a straight stretch of road that was utterly clear and dry. I suspect a deer event, given the surrounding area. I didn't see the front end of the car, and I suppose it could have been a bad tire blowout, or some sort of driver error. Traffic wasn't heavy enough to have been a likely cause.

Anyway. I'm here. carnyjack is cooking a late-night dinner -- we're splitting a filet and a yellowfin tuna steak, too. The aroma is enticing and then some.

All is well. May it be so with you and yours.