Stuff & Nonsense(probably)

German glass, older than dirt(which didn't exist, as a word until sometime in the 1940s)

The "Indian" Angel ornament, from our first Christmas together.

Our Christmas tree Angel. Pretty old, though young enough for electric lights, from Ginny's life before me.

This is Aaron, snow angel-ing at the beginning of this, the biggest snow storm in Portland, Oregon since 1968. Um, that's 40 years for you math majors.

It's been interesting and challenging.

This kind of thing used to be a common occurrence for me in my Wichita, Kansas days. (HI Todd & Amy!)

Not so much here in the "Rose City", city of bridges, city of the ever present, nine months of the year rain.

Cleaning snow off of my lovely wife's little Ford.

Yesterday, when there was only about half a foot of snow, round two or three, after all the previous week's snow had melted.

Yesterday's depth of snow on the Subaru's windshield. a mere 7 or 8 inches.

Today's snow on the Subaru, more like a foot or so of drift. We actually only got ....well, almost a foot here in this part of town, over some ice, over the prior snow, over some ice.

The airport here has been canceling flights like the great CATACLYSM cancelled the flights of pterodactyls...

OK, maybe not with that finality.

Many people stranded at PDX.

They are saying quite a few of them won't get flights out now until after Christmas. I very much feel for them. I was once stranded by an erstwhile charter for three days in Seattle. It was January, 1976. I was 17. Some very nice retired Pacific Lutheran University Profs came and rescued me and put me up till the next Charter came to take me to Hong Kong. 'nother story.

When I go outside, to smoke(haven't quite quit yet) I always find myself looking to the sky. I've been looking to the sky, it seems, all my life. The sky here is not as big, as expansive, as the sky back home in Kansas. They Call Wyoming "Big Sky Country". I've been there. It's got nothing on Kansas for BIG skies.

Still, when I look to the sky, especially at night, where ever I am, I am always reminded of how huge the world is, still, even in this info-age without borders, compared to me....and how tiny the world is, compared to the immensities of the universe. (I sometimes go to Science/Astronomy sites just to remind me how un-fathomably huge the universe is).

I've been holed up in a two bedroom apartment for three days with my wife and our 4 year old, who is literally bouncing off the walls. It's actually been not too bad for me. Ginny has been down with migraine/nausea/low grade fever for a couple of those. She got back up to help assemble and decorate our artificial tree(economic, not aesthetic decision). Bless her holiday heart.

This season of the year I am always reminded, as I'm sure many are, of so many Christmases past. Fifty of them, on down through the years, some better than others. But...All with that more sweet than bitter feeling of belonging, of wanting the best for friends and family, of generally love and good will - at least on my part, and I prefer to think in the hearts of most.

I wish not for the Norman Rockwell fantasy Christmases so well ingrained in the hopes and expectations of our naive youths, but for the sense of belonging and of hope that comes with the Meaning of Christmas. I not much of a preacher. But, thanks God, for this and everything.

Thus endeth the nostalgic, possibly sappy ramblings of a middle aged Guy.

Merry Christmas.