Rainy Drive

I shouldn’t complain about a warm rain storm near the end of December. I’m going to though. I know I’m tempting fate. After more than ten feet of snow last winter we have yet to have any appreciable snow in Worcester. After last winter “appreciable” is a loaded term. If it doesn’t snow by tomorrow, and its scheduled to be nearly 70 degrees, we will set a record for the latest arrival of snow in these parts. I couldn’t be happier. I used to bemoan the lack of the white stuff at Christmas time. After my long hours on the driveway from hell last winter I can firmly state I don’t miss it, not even a little bit.

Well before I got sidetracked into my snowmegeddon PTSD rant I was going to tell you why I didn’t appreciate the rain last night even though it was warm. If it had been a snow storm it would have easily dropped twenty inches of snow on the region. My complaint is the completely unreasonable effect even a little bit of rain has on the driving habits of the “common sense challenged”. I had to drive into Boston to pick up a Pana-Girl and the normal one hour trip stretched to more than two hours, for no other reason than the rain.

We didn’t have to park since our quarry had the time to get through passport control, customs and retrieve her bags whilst we were admiring the varying landscape of the Mass Pike at 5mph. We all know that patience will never be my strong suit and I hate being late to anything, especially a friend arriving in a foreign country. She handled the delay with aplomb and was waiting at the curb when we pulled up.

What Mass Pike Looked Like Last Night

Her mother died in the past year and she didn’t want to spend the holiday surrounded by memories. Unfortunately we have a full house for the actual holiday so we were not able to put her up until after the 25^th. The next door Mafioso met the PanaGal last year and without a second thought offered to put her up for a few days until our house vacated. That’s a good indication of just how generous our outstanding neighbors are. We took a little less than two hours getting back to Worcester and they had a delicious dinner waiting for all of us upon our return. As stated above, they define excellence in the whole neighbor category.

PanaGal and Wife Reunited

I forgot to download my daily photo fix of the First Blog Reader before leaving for work this morning. I called up my wife to see if any new ones had arrived so she could send them along. She was still on the phone when she checked and I could tell immediately from the cooing and other gramma appropriate noises issuing forth that she found some new ones, a sample of which I will of course share with you. It is Christmas time:

Okay, Are You Sure You're Ready for Intense Cuteness?

Alright, You've Been Warned

This is one of my Best Smirks

How Was it For You?

That Was Exhausting, Time for Some Late Night Crashing with Dad

I finished off the second in the new Sword of Truth series, The Third Kingdom by Terry Goodkind. I enjoyed this one a lot more than The Omen Machine because Richard is put back in action. He’s till severely hamstrung because Goodkind steals his magic power away to make it an even fight with the newest contender for his throne. The new guy can conjure up the dead and features full body tattoos and red eyes (Goodkind always paints a great villain). He’s assisted by a veritable human wave of cannibals and a long dead sorcerer so Richard and Kahlan have their work cut out for them.

It does take a while for the action to heat up as Kahlan spends a good half of the book unconscious and Richard is imprisoned. Once the action starts it’s hard to put the book down. Goodkind does battle scenes so well that it frustrating when he spends so much time describing the local flora and fauna. Here’s an example of how exciting Goodkind can write as Richard is reunited with Kahlan finding her ably defending herself against one of the cannibal attacks.

Richard had his sword out. She could see the magic of its rage in his gray eyes. Without pause, as Kahlan crashed into him, he smoothly circled a powerful arm around her waist. Lifted her around behind him, set her down, and as he turned back, beheaded the first man to run toward him. The moment of seeing him, of realizing that it was really him, seemed frozen in time to her. None of it made any sense. Being attacked by savage cannibals didn’t make any sense. But then in that fraction of a second, that spark of time, they shared a look and she knew that nothing else mattered. Richard was there. The rest of the horde descended in on him before the severed head had hit the ground. And then the killing began in earnest.”