22 December 2005

I'm waiting for a new humidifier. Not very exciting, and yet I can't wait for it to get here, because it's cold enough to be extremely dry in this house. Dry enough that one would suspect collusion between the humidifier people and the hand lotion, Brita filter, and hair conditioner manufacturers, if it didn't just seem that the humidifier people's schedulers were incompetent. (Standard Heating in St. Paul. I recommend that you not use them. Their scheduling people have a somewhat more relaxed attitude about this whole business than one might hope. "Our guy can't come in today after all, how about three to four weeks from now?" How about NO?)

This grown-up thing, where you're required to be at least a little interested in humidifiers and vacuum cleaners and the like, or if not interested, at least concerned: it is overrated.

Anyway. It's here and installed now, leaving only half a million things to do this afternoon.

...Which did not, apparently, include finishing and posting this journal entry. Sorry, people. People to supervise, stuff to pack, cookies to eat. You know how it is.

Mark and I and Ista are leaving for Omaha this afternoon late, and Mark and I will be back on the 26th briefly. (Ista is staying with my folks until sometime in January.) We'll head to Milwaukee on the 27th and return sometime before it's 2006. Don't expect to hear from me here until we return from Milwaukee. We will be seeing my side of the family, Mark's side of the family, and possibly a friend or two along the way.

I'm finishing and printing a new story, and then I'll pick up Panera sandwiches for the trip, and then we'll be off. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and joyous Solstice, and while I'm at it happy New Year, too, in case I forget when I get back.