Update from Faerie

Well, this past extended weekend here in Faerie was a boil and buzz of activity, little of it restful, but little to complain about, either.

For those who’ve forgotten the Faerie reference, I quote …

Meantime, I greet you from Faerie nonetheless.

Not that being here in Southern California and visiting with parents and in-laws is really like Faerie. I mean, there’s plentiful food and drink, good company, realms of wonder for Katherine to explore, and a strange, timeless, sense where days rolls by in a quiet, busy blur, and where worldly responsibilities seem to fade in importance …

… until you wake up, like Rip Van Winkle, and twenty years have passed, and all those things you promised yourself you’d work on during your vacation remain undone. Eep!

Yeah, that’s been the way it’s been, except that things have been a bit more frenzied than in years past.

(Ironically, that quoted post, from 2001, also tells of the last time we drove out to California.)

Guest-wise it was a full house — travel edition Settlers of Catan on Thursday, Mary arriving the same day. Meanwhile, the nephews, Nick and Alex had a stay-over from Saturday night to Tuesday. Add Katherine and Kaylee into the mix, and it was quite the whirlwind.

Friday night we had our annual get-together at Jim & Di’s, wherein much food is eaten, much wine consumed, and much talking done. (That’s true for pretty much all events around this season, at least the ones I’m interested in). Jim and Ginger watched Katherine and KK, which was quite nice of them. Long drive to/from Glendale, but it’s always good company up there.

Saturday we had the Ks’ Christmas Party, always a huge production, complete with hors d’oeuvres making, cleaning, and getting all fancied up.

Sunday was New Years Eve, of course — a contrastingly small production this year because of the concentration of other plans and the fact that we just kind of take it progressively slower as time goes on. While the Ks and Kerfoots chatted in the back room, Margie and Jackie and I played a couple of rounds with my new travel edition Settlers of Catan (Mary headed home earlier in the day for a function down
there). We did a toast with the kids at 9, then they went to bed and the Kerfoots arrived and … well, we adults made it to Midnight and Beyond (most of the Beyond due to the fireworks and chit-chat-on-the-doorstep types in the neighborhood waking up Kaylee). A nice way, nonetheless, to usher in the new year.

Monday was New Years Day — as close to an “off” day as I had over the weekend, with a fair amount of lounging about and playing different flavors of DX-Ball on the computer — between the Ks computer, my notebook, the family notebook, and the Ks’ old iMac, we had a fair number of seats for adults and kids to play on. We caught the Rose Parade first thing in the morning,
of course (awakening Jackie, as she and KK were bunking in the Play Room), but all in all it was a moderately relaxing day. Michelle came over in the evening for more chitchat.

Through all this, mind you, I was also working in the office (Thursday and half-Friday) and regularly (well, fairly regularly) checking e-mail and getting on conference calls at the office (Friday-Tuesday), since we had all sorts of major implementations and conversions going on (new payroll system, new labor costing system, new PTO system, consolidating and changing around various company numbers and legal entities, etc.). That all added a frisson of “is there anything else I need to check?” to the proceedings.

Yesterday I took off from work. In the morning, the kids (well, Katherine, plus Margie and Jackie) played in the mud, then everyone swam. In the afternoon, we headed over to the Santa Ana Zoo for a few hours. Then Margie and Ginger took the boys back up to Beverly Hills, while Jackie and KK and I headed to my folks house …

,,, so that I could disappear into the back room to do my annual Work on the Parents’ PC (New Dell PC Edition), as well as get iTunes installed and educate them on how to rip CDs and sync up selected music to my Dad’s iPod Nano.

Then a very yummy dinner (my mom does make the best meat sauce), a last re-cap of iInstructions, and off to the Ks and bed.

So Jackie and KK are off back home today (hopefully a much less eventful flight, and it’s been faboo having them here), and the boys are gone, so it’s going to be relatively empty house when I get home from work — and I’m working today and tomorrow, taking Friday off … and then we drive home on Saturday/Sunday, and Monday off and we return (ha!) to normalcy …

… at least until the following weekend, when Jim and Ginger are coming to visit and help us out with our Twelfth Night Party.

I’m sure there’s been some relaxation in there somewhere, but this stint in Faerie has been no more “productive” or “gosh, here’s some things I can get done over the holidays” than any of the others. Though for all that, I wouldn’t have missed any of it for the world.