TOO MUCH INFO?

Well, the winter-break vacation is drawing to an end. And what a fine one it was! Long enough to encompass both activity and rest, true spiritual re-creation. Tomorrow G returns to full-time work, and I return to my afternoon work with the grade school kids. Classes at the college don't resume until January 10th, so my mornings will remain free for another week.

Vacation began with the trip to Texas, and time spent there with my darling nieces, sister and two very dear friends. We played games, read books, went to see the Lemony Snicket movie, ate lots of Mexican food, and even shopped. Lots of book shopping, in fact. This year all family kids got books and/or games, although the San Antonio nephew got CDs, as he has just discovered jazz. To love jazz at the age of 16 is a sign of superior soul as far as I'm concerned, and will certainly make my gifting him a lot of fun.

After I got back from Dallas we had our holiday party at La Casita (afterschool program), complete with a visit from a not-very-believable Santa Claus (the kids in my group are too old to believe in him anyway) and massive amounts of pizza. The end of that afternoon was the real beginning of total vacating. We went in to D.C. on Christmas Eve, with a stop at Chesapeake Chicken for lunch and more gift shopping. It's a little place along Hwy 50 with spectacular food and quirky gift items like candles, cookbooks, pottery. We got a few things for the sister and brother-in-law in D.C., which were big successes. Traffic was light in the city, and we stopped by my sister's house in Georgetown first, wearing elf hats and bearing gifts. We took our niece, M, with us to check in to our hotel on Wisconsin Ave, so we could play Crazy 8's and give her mother a chance to get dinner into the oven.

The weekend was spent eating wonderful food (my sister and bro-in-law are real foodies, and eating there is always a gourmet experience), enjoying gifts - mainly books and chocolate for the grown-ups, games and books for the niece. We gave Cranium Cadoo to M, and therefore spent quite a lot of time playing it. It's an astonishing amount of fun. I have an interesting bunch of nieces and nephews. The first group is grown-up now, one of my nieces is on her third pregnancy, so I am, in fact, a greataunt. The second group is mostly adopted, and is still young. Thus, they range in age from 7 to early 30's. I have nieces the same age as our oldest grand-daughter.It's a delightful situation, and I love and enjoy every one of them at every age. My oldest niece has always been very special to me, gets more so all the time - in her thirties she is an artist, a student, a witch, a magical person.

Anyway, I digress. The day after Christmas we all went to the new National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in September. I've been dying to get there, and although it was a bad choice of day (everyone else visiting D.C. for the holidays also decided to go there on Sunday), I am glad to have finally made it. I'll need many return visits to see all the treasures it holds. The architecture alone is something amazing to behold - somehow it manages to capture the soaring cliffs, the feel and spirit of Indian Land. We spent all afternoon there, had to be tossed out at closing time. It's about time this country honored its first people in such an outstanding way. It doesn't make up for the treachery and deceit, the destruction of civilizations and peoples, but it's a fine gesture. I am always saddened in NAI museums and exhibits; there was an exhibit I saw some years ago in Dallas of Ghost Dance paraphernalia and ceremonial clothing. It left me heartbroken, truly realizing the pain of loss so deeply felt by the People.

Before we went and had so much exhausting fun, we had hoped to have a meeting with two D.C. area journal friends: Judith HeartSong and Tank Gurl (who actually has a real name, but maybe she doesn’t want it known here - ?). I never heard from Judi (until I got home and found an email) and only had a voicemail from Tank Gurl on Sunday after I got out of the museum and turned on my phone. By then I was too worn out (also fighting to keep a cold from becoming any worse) for any more fun. That may have to be a trip all its own.

We came home on Monday, picked up our dog from "camp," and settled in for a last week of freedom. It has been a spectacular week of long walks on the beach or in the woods and wetlands, birding, cooking and eating, reading, movies, big fires in the fireplace, evening soaks in the hot tub. This is how life is meant to be lived, I’m pretty sure. If we can stay fit and healthy until we can retire, this is how we’ll live all the time.

I have lots of pictures I want to put with this vacation post, but it’s already much too long. So, perhaps tomorrow, I’ll do a photo entry. I love winter -love the colors of the land and water, the shapes of the trees, tangles of vines and grasses, love winter sunsets, stars caught in bare tree branches at night, love walking in the cold, especially on the beach. We’ve seen so many wonderful birds – today at Prime Hook we saw a northern harrier, a pair of yellow-breasted chats (we think), a flock of cedar waxwings, a group of golden-crowned kinglets, a downy woodpecker, a belted kingfisher, and in the ponds on the way to the fishing beach there were a million (at least) snow geese. Yesterday at Cape Henlopen we saw loons and grebes, as well as the usual gulls and sanderlings. Then there’s the great blue herons, always seen but always a gift.

We’ve had our black-eyed peas, a big pot of them cooked with ham hock, onions, garlic and green peppers. They’re supposed to bring luck and prosperity for the new year – so I hope everyone has had some. They also bring an astounding amount of gas, but we won’t go into THAT any further. It’s a southern tradition, supposedly begun by the African slaves. In any case, peas, gas, tradition – whatever your new year’s superstitions may be, I wish you peace and personal fulfillment in this year. My hopes for global goodness are very few, but we do what we can.