Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Day 1471 - Christmas

Janet woke me up at 3:30 AM. I dressed quickly, packed the car, and at 4 AM we headed for the airport. The roads, even the freeways, were absolutely empty. I've had early flights before, but I guess never on Christmas morning. It was eerie, even a little spooky, to travel through a huge city absolutely devoid of traffic. When we entered the airport itself, traffic picked up a bit, and when I dropped Janet off at her terminal, there was actually quite a crowd. Apparently she wasn't the only one squeezing in a quick trip to visit relatives on Christmas morning.

When I returned to the house, I went straight back to bed again with the dogs and didn't wake up again until three hours later when sunlight began streaming through a bedroon window and Dot and Dash informed me that it was time for their breakfast.

It was a lazy day, since there was absolutely nothing to do. The weather was nice, so we took an extra long walk this morning. There were lots of joggers on the trails and many of them wore Santa hats. Almost everyone wished us a Merry Christmas as we passed by. I like quiet, amorphous days like this. There appeared to be lots of family activity up and down the street. The smell of smoke from dozens of fireplaces filled the air and cars filled with presents and food arrived and departed with regularity.

My own house was an island of calm. I fixed myself some oatmeal and fruit, brewed a pot of coffee, and watched a Dr. Who marathon that culminated with the annual Christmas special later in the evening. After breakfast I went through a stack of unopened mail and discovered that my stockbroker had made some trades that he had forgotten to tell me about. Actually they were probably trades that we'd agreed about several months ago at our last meeting, but you couldn't prove it by me. I never take notes at these meetings and promptly forget what we've talked about. I reviewed the trades and they all seemed quite reasonable. I still wonder whether we ever talked about this before though.

When I told one of my clients not to send me any work on Christmas Day, he probably imagined that I was off to a big family gathering. The truth is that I just enjoy doing nothing. The world won't end if I do nothing for a few days. I'm sure that all the crazy deadlines will return within a week or so wherever I do.

I found the Dr. Who Christmas Special a bit confusing. Somehow the doctor managed to age 300 years while Clara was having Christmas dinner with her parents. Throughout most of the show the doctor kept telling Clara that he couldn't regenerate anymore and was finally going to die. At the very end however, the time lords reached through a rift of time that I thought the doctor had already taken care of in a previous season, and brought him back to life again. The plot had so many confusing  twists and turns that I wonder if Steven Moffat just makes this stuff up as he goes along.

Tomorrow things will be more or less back to normal. Dot's physical therapy sessions have been rescheduled to Thursdays for the duration of the holidays. I need to get Dash back to the vet for his antigen shot. I wouldn't be surprised if there was work to do as well. There always seems to be work to do on Thursdays.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day
Watch of the Day