reasons to undertake and ways to recover from winter travel
I'm home at last, a day later than expected, and I am here to tell you: friends are awesome.
My train into not-exactly-Madison was delayed last week, which meant I showed up late and on a bus; truepenny and mirrorthaw not only waited patiently for me, they took me to my favorite used bookstore immediately afterwards, which effectively wiped all travel trauma from my mind. And they bought me milk! ♥ We had a pleasantly low-key few days: hosting friends for dinner, going to a couple of Redbird shows (at which I also saw renenet and pipsqueaky), eating Indian food, watching Crusoe, and going to more beloved and much-missed book and CD stores (whee!).
truepenny also loaned me C.L. Moore's Jiriel of Joiry, which is a mercy because I'd boxed up and mailed my book purchases and my train home turned out to be 7 hours delayed; fortunately we'd already known it was 2 hours delayed, so I only had to wait 5 hours, and the Moore book took care of a good chunk of that time. Boarded the train at midnight, got to near the Twin Cities station around 6:30am, had to evacuate the train about 150 yards from the station platform because ice caused a slight engine derailment (not a big deal, just annoying), made it to the station and went out into the thirty-below-plus windchill to discover that my car wouldn't start. Called AAA, played a lot of spider solitaire while waiting for the AAA guy to show, got the car jumped around 10:30, drove to the home of jackiekjono and lapillus and promptly collapsed in a heap on the couch. Jackie made me hot cocoa and showed me the first episode of Leverage, which a) utterly charmed me, and b) reminded me that I need to watch Hustle sometime soon. The three of us hung around chatting and eating Chinese food (pot stickers make everything better in my world) and drinking Sprecher root beer and watching more Leverage and then I crashed like a crashing thing around 7pm, slept for a solid 12 hours, and woke up feeling much more human, not to mention able to drive home. I even managed to run a few errands on the way (watercress! mushroom stock! basmati rice! tamarind pulp! Asian sesame paste!).
And now I am home, and the cats are cranky with me but somewhat mollified by the gift of wheat grass, and I am going to finish my grading and watch last week's Sarah Connor Chronicles and go to bed. And probably spend tomorrow finding Leverage icons. Heh.
My train into not-exactly-Madison was delayed last week, which meant I showed up late and on a bus; truepenny and mirrorthaw not only waited patiently for me, they took me to my favorite used bookstore immediately afterwards, which effectively wiped all travel trauma from my mind. And they bought me milk! ♥ We had a pleasantly low-key few days: hosting friends for dinner, going to a couple of Redbird shows (at which I also saw renenet and pipsqueaky), eating Indian food, watching Crusoe, and going to more beloved and much-missed book and CD stores (whee!).
truepenny also loaned me C.L. Moore's Jiriel of Joiry, which is a mercy because I'd boxed up and mailed my book purchases and my train home turned out to be 7 hours delayed; fortunately we'd already known it was 2 hours delayed, so I only had to wait 5 hours, and the Moore book took care of a good chunk of that time. Boarded the train at midnight, got to near the Twin Cities station around 6:30am, had to evacuate the train about 150 yards from the station platform because ice caused a slight engine derailment (not a big deal, just annoying), made it to the station and went out into the thirty-below-plus windchill to discover that my car wouldn't start. Called AAA, played a lot of spider solitaire while waiting for the AAA guy to show, got the car jumped around 10:30, drove to the home of jackiekjono and lapillus and promptly collapsed in a heap on the couch. Jackie made me hot cocoa and showed me the first episode of Leverage, which a) utterly charmed me, and b) reminded me that I need to watch Hustle sometime soon. The three of us hung around chatting and eating Chinese food (pot stickers make everything better in my world) and drinking Sprecher root beer and watching more Leverage and then I crashed like a crashing thing around 7pm, slept for a solid 12 hours, and woke up feeling much more human, not to mention able to drive home. I even managed to run a few errands on the way (watercress! mushroom stock! basmati rice! tamarind pulp! Asian sesame paste!).
And now I am home, and the cats are cranky with me but somewhat mollified by the gift of wheat grass, and I am going to finish my grading and watch last week's Sarah Connor Chronicles and go to bed. And probably spend tomorrow finding Leverage icons. Heh.