Hello 2008

My New Year's was wonderfully mellow. Dara, Byron and I watched some movies and stayed up just into the new year. That's right, we are cold hard rocking machines. :) We went to Rocky Mountain National Park on New Year's Day. The idea was that we would go sledding, but the wind was blowing so hard and it was SO VERY COLD, that we only made about three runs and then scurried back to the car. We didn't end up being able to snowshoe as said wind blew said snow away. We did make it to the aquarium and I was able to take a picture of Jack underwater:


(Yes... I did finally get the camera situation resolved so photos should begin flowing again.)

I flew back to El Salvador this weekend on a red-eye from Denver to LA to Salvador. Not my favorite way to fly, but it got me here. Two interesting stories though....

On the first leg of the flight between Denver and LA, as we were getting ready to close the door on the plane, the steward announced over the loudspeaker that "A woman, possibly by the name of Susan, grabbed the wrong bag as she was leaving the Mile High Club." I am sure that he mis-spoke and meant the Red Carpet Club, or whatever it is called. But, I think he blew whatever chances there were of someone fessing up to the mix-up.

I had about 20 minutes between flight one and flight two. It was so close, in fact, that the airline figured I wouldn't make it and gave away my seat. This was a little disappointing as my original seat was a window seat in the exit row and my new seat was the middle seat in the knee-squisher row. I would have been really bitter except that I was hoping the sacrifice would warrant all my luggage arriving with me in San Salvador. Also, the kid that got my good seat was a trombone player in the Salvadoran High School band that had traveled to LA to march in the Parade of Roses. There were about 20 of them on my flight and they were incredibly sweet. They were so excited.... all perma-grinned and snapping pictures of EVERYTHING. The plane, the stewards, the wings, the upright seats and tray tables. Most of the kids come from Salvador's lowest-resourced communities and were sponsored primarily by Salvadorans living in the LA area. (LA and Washington, DC are the two cities with the highest concentration of Salvadoran in the US.) It was the kids' first time in an airplane as they had to travel in bus on the way there. They ran into all sorts of problems on the bus and finally the "powers that be" on the Salvadoran side pony'ed-up and chipped in on plane tickets. Anyway, I moved so the kid could be with his friends.... in my seat.

So I, and my luggage (yay!) made it back and found that a panel of tile had relocated while I was away. Apparently there was a windy, cold-front while I was gone and the tile over my garage decided to go elsewhere. At least it was the garage. So I spend all day Monday clearing my house of dust and ash. Monday night I had friends over for a traditional meatloaf and mashed potatoes dinner. (Big hit!) Then this morning I was back to work.