The week between

It's kind of nice being away from easy internet access for a while. In the past four days I have probably spent about 20 minutes on the good ol' information superhighway, not counting the time I was playing with the Opera browser on my Nintendo Wii (and that doesn't really count, since the absence of a keyboard makes "surfing" more like "hobbling around with crutches"). I'm writing this from Helena, Montana, where we are visiting relatives for Christmas, and as I look outside the kitchen door of their house I am greeted with a scene of rolling hills and majestic promontories that one just doesn't often see back home in Minnesota. The visit has been excellent, as it always is when we come up here, and today is looking like no exception. We will be here until the end of the week, that strange middle-child of a week sandwiched between the festivities of Christmas and New Years, during which the country pauses to catch its collective breath after one holiday only to plunge headlong into another and then back to the familiar routine for another 51 Mondays, at which point we will load up the Corolla and head back to the Twin Cities.

So yeah, I hope all of you had a wondrous Christmas and will soon have a happy New Year. :)