I'm back from my holiday getaway with the family. The other Double D did some serious time. Looks like I have a few trips to Montreal in my future to make up for it. I love my family of course, but isn't it funny how the smallest things can make a grown up little sister turn into a little sister again? (And the other way round, of course). I am the youngest of four, and while I rarely fly off the handle at any unsolicited advice from my brothers, when it comes from my sister, watch out! She reserves a special brand of bossiness just for me and sometimes I am alarmed at my response to it.
So our little cabin in the Tahoe woods had its moments, but we had a good time. There wasn't much good snow to be had, and my aging muscles certainly felt the passage of time that had passed since the last time I engaged in any winter sports (at least 5 years). Anything I once knew about moving downhill on skis seemed to have been erased from my memory, and I spent the greater part of a day on a bunny slope, the worst part of which was making my way up to the top of its feeble peak by way of the crotch-grabbing T-bar, which should be banned from all ski resorts from now on. Remind me never to try that thing with a snowboard. It gets very tricky, trust me.
On the way home we stopped in San Francisco for a whirlwind 24 hours mostly spent shopping (as if we hadn't done enough of that before Christmas) and catching our first movie in the theatre in an embarrassingly long time (The Pursuit of Happyness). I believe only my family would be capable of separating into two groups to purchase tickets and end up buying them for different showtimes. At least I was in the party that purchased tickets for the showtime in the FUTURE, as opposed to the one that started 20 minutes prior to our arrival at the theatre.
We also sidetracked off the 101 on the way home to spend an afternoon in Paso Robles. We stopped at a wonderful cheese store downtown before rambling onto whatever winery we hit first, hoping it was one where we could picnic. The left fork in the road put us here, and it was the best stop we could have made. I highly recommend a visit if you're in the area. Not only will you taste good wine in the company of the winemaker himself, but you'll also enjoy the company of the menagerie that includes Bailey the fat black lab and Sunshine the cat.
And now we're home again, and it's so good to be on an unstructured, lazy schedule until I go back to work for just a few more days before leaving for South Africa. Somewhere I have a list of things to get done in preparation for the trip, but I'm going to ignore it until next weekend.
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