V2 redux Breaking old links left and right as we dust off the cobwebs

The Boy Come Home

My new theme idea for the moment is to use song titles as my entry titles.  We'll see how long it takes until I either get bored with it or forget.  Tonight's title comes courtesy of Matthew Good and the album Hospital Music.

In what might have been the most exhausting day of travel I've ever been on which still managed to successfully reach its destination, I got back to Seattle tonight, getting in my door at about 8 pm PST after leaving my parents house in Buffalo at 5:15 am EST (and here it is now at 11 PST and I'm still awake, although only nominally so, and only until I finish typing this sentence and click 'submit'.)

Buffalo, Day 10: Finale

Went to Niagara Falls and took lots of photos (to be uploaded later), went to another Sabres game (they lost), and now went to bed since we're leaving the house tomorrow at 5:30 am.

Buffalo, Day 9: Mele Kalikimaka

Another Christmas has come and gone (well, in ten minutes it will have gone, at least from this coast.) Having missed the past two family Christmases I can't necessarily judge this one as being abruptly different, but people have slowly drifted off either due to death or work, and slowly people have grown older and the excitement surrounding the event has abated. Gone (at least for now) are the days where the kids clamored to open their gifts at the crack of dawn and a separate table was set in the kitchen to contain the mess. Now everyone is either exhausted after a few hours, or has additional family obligations at other houses and has to skip off quickly, leaving a dwindling crowd to pick at the remains of the meal and socialize.

On the plus side, most gifts these days are the cash/gift card variety, which also means gone are the days of waiting in mile-long lines at the returns counter.

One more full day for me in Buffalo; one more full day of recollections and memories; one more full day of the ghosts of familiar sights and sounds; one more full day of old haunts and old patterns; one more full day of flashbacks to my 21 year-old self.
One more day of living out of a suitcase in a guest bedroom in a house I once knew.

I'm ready to go home.

Buffalo, Day 8: Of Candlelight and Carols

My parents' church now shares its space with a Korean church, and tonight they held a joint candlelight service, with the groups trading off parts.

By far the strangest moment came when the Korean choir performed part of "The First Noel" in Korean.  Consider that -- a French carol, partially translated first into English, and then on into Korean.  I had a momentary flashback to my time on the boat, and the Chinese wedding band doing strange Engrish covers of Western songs.

Less than twelve hours until the Great Voght Clan Christmas Dinner Extravaganza (or at least what remains of it.)  It's my first time back for it in three years.

Buffalo, Day 7: Of Holy Rollers, Hospitals, and High Winds

Attended an organized religious service this morning with my mom, for the first time in about oh... three years?  (Aside from my grandfather's funeral service, but that's a whole different kettle of kippers.)  Needless to say it reinforced my feelings about most organized religion , though I'll be back yet again tomorrow for the candelight service with the family.

After that we got a surprise phone call that my grandmother had been taken to the emergency room with chest pains, although after many hours there and a few tests they decided it was some issue with her sternum and not her heart, and a few doses of vicodin were in order.

Tonight the temperature has plunged from a high in the mid 50s at about 1 pm down to the mid 20s, and the winds are in the 40 mph range with gusts over 60, and changed from a steady downpour that melted all the snow into new lake-effect snow blowing every direction except straight down.  Nasty weather, and a good night to stay in and avoid the sure-to-be slick roads.  I guess it just wouldn't be a December for me without a wind storm or two!