Post-Holiday Debriefing

Whew...it's been a whirlwindy kind of week. 30+ hours of traveling on the road, to and from the semi-frozen north (Denver--I want my white Christmas back!), eating everything that wasn't nailed down (even though I actually LOST a pound!), culimating in having to actually haul my lazy carcass out of bed last week and go to work. No, not that work yet...just to SS.

The Man got a Tom-Tom GPS for Christmas, so he spent the 10+ hour-drive home from the not-so-frozen North playing with it. It did not help that he had programmed it to give the "red alert" sound from Star Trek every time you passed a point of interest. Nothing quite like achieving the nirvana-like state of highway hypnosis and being rudely jolted out of the white line fever and looking for Klingons or Hortas.

A few miles south of Beckley, WV, I saw a traffic sign that indicated that traffic was backed up for 10 miles, so I asked The Man to quickly reconfigure us a route that would avoid the problem. We gleefully got off at Camp Creek, WV, and took what was optimistically named "County Highway 3," which should have been named "Road to Deliveranceville." It was a 1-lane road, barely paved, that wound around the side of a small mountain. At one point, we were faced with crossing a bridge that had patches and holes in the middle...backing up was not an option, either. Next time, I will be sure and specify "2-lane or better" roads when asking for a route configuration. (Thankfully, The Man got tired of the red alert sound, and it went awaaaay.)

We went to the Old Hometown over the weekend for New Year's, and on the way home, gave the Tom-Tom free reign to take us the shortest route...shortest is a literal term for it, and it's not necessarily the fastest route. At one point, it was very insistent that we turn left down what looked to be, at best, a deer path, which also went down the side of a mountain. Beginning to see a pattern here? I think the damn thing is trying to kill us. It's probably the product of some evil genius with a world domination complex.

Anyway, tomorrow is the first day of the new job. I had coffee with the Chiclet over the weekend, and while I'm really going to miss her, I'm really excited about starting a new adventure. Besides, she said she would call me after the garde manger classes and let me know how it's going. I've got more stuff to blog about from Christmas, but at some point, I really need to get some sleep...and I think now is the point. : ) I feel like I've been running non-stop for about 9 days now, and I want to be all bright-eyed, etc. for tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Hope everyone had a lovely New Year's Day, and best wishes for a prosperous 2007!