AmyStrange.org/Christmas-2002.txt ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Connecticut Christmas-------------------------------------------------- ---------Copyright (c) by Dave Ayotte---------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi everyone, I'll be going home to Connecticut for Christmas this year (somehow that sounds like a movie or something doesn't it... hehehe). Since I live in Seattle, I'll be flying home rather than taking the bus or driving. Taking the bus or driving all the way back to the east coast would just take way too long. I'd finally get there after four or five days of driving, hug everyone I could find, and then have to immediately get back in the car and drive all the way back to Seattle and that would be my whole Christmas vacation --riding or driving from one coast to other and then back again. Well it wouldn't be that bad, but that certainly sounds funnier than what would really happen don't you think? In the old days, flying was an experience that very few people forgot (or got over depending on your experience), but nowadays, especially with all this terrorist talk going on and the White House constantly reminding everyone about the fact (not possibility, but fact) that the terrorist will attack again, every trip to the airport has become an exciting adventure worthy of its own book. Some people are even predicting that this holiday season is the next target date. So with all that going on, flying anywhere in the United States (and the world for that matter) during the next few weeks will certainly be even more interesting than it usually is. My schedule right now is to leave SeaTac (Seattle Tacoma Airport) at 10pm (Seattle time) on the 22nd, first flying to Atlanta, holding over in Atlanta for a couple, two, three hours, and then finally flying up to Hartford. Arriving almost twelve hours after leaving the airport in Seattle. Atleast that's what my itinerary says, but in reality It'll only be nine hours, because of the three hour time difference between Washington State and Connecticut. I'll be staying at my sister Donna's house for most of the vacation. She's the one who bought my plane ticket. That in itself is a long, long story so I won't bore you with the details about that here. Christmas Eve, my sister will be working and since she's a bartender, I'll be hanging with her at the bar and meeting all her friends. Should be fun. New Years Eve, she's throwing a party at her house and I'll be there partying too. The rest of the time will be spent hiking around Mystic, Connecticut, going up to visit Salem, Massachussetts again, and drinking and relaxing and having a good old time. I'll try to keep you all up-to-date on all of that in this article. Then on the 7th of January, I'll be hoping on the plane in Hartford at about 1pm (Connecticut time) and beginning the return journey back to Seattle. This flight will only take five or six hours, but that's because I'll be losing those three hours I gained flying east or something like that. That's my schedule so far. Changes will be noted as I write and revise this article. I'm kind of excited about the whole thing, and I hope you enjoy reading this article (and coming along with me atleast in spirit) as much as I'll enjoy writing it. Thanx for listening. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------NOV-20-2002 [WED] 0859 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Called my sister Donna this afternoon and tonight to talk about my coming down for Christmas and to tell her about this really weird thing that happened. Earlier this year in May, I had gone to a Public Meeting so folks could make comments about a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) concerning a proposed project to be undertaken at Hanford Reach here in Washington State. I signed a couple petitions while I was there and in the process gave my real street address. A week later, I got a notice in the mail that I was being added to the federal government jury pool cycle. I had never heard of this. I don't mean that I've never heard of the jury system. I mean that it never crossed my mind that the federal government had a to pick juries too. Everyone I talked to at work had never been put in a federal government jury pool either. They've been picked to serve on city and state jury pools, but never the federal government. I guess they need them as well as everyone else, but it was just really weird that they picked me for one not more than a week after I had signed those petitions protesting the upcoming Hanford Reach Waste project. Anyway to make a long story short, a week ago I got a notice that I would be serving my jury time during guess which days? You guessed it. They had picked me to serve during the time I was suppose to go back to Connecticut. Sheesh, that is just too coincidental don't you think? One good thing about the federal government jury system is that they make it real easy to get out of if you have a good reason. I sure hope my Christmas vacation is a good enough reason. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------NOV-25-2002 [MON] 0859 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Got the tickets today. My sister had sent them via registered mail or something like that and had insured them for a few bucks. Enough to cover the cost to buy new tickets especially since it was so much closer to Christmas. I went to Yahoo travel to see how much it would cost to buy a ticket to replace that one less than a month before the departure date and the cheapest I could find was $431.00. Considering my sister originally paid $243.00 back in August, that was a really big difference. I'll have to check the prices again just before I take off so I could see what they would have cost if I had waited until that day to buy them. Well ok when I opened the envelope all that was in it was a couple sheets of paper with my itinery on it and a small cardboard that had the words, "Not Valid For Travel," written on it and a photocopy of that small little cardboard. No ticket. I thought oh crap, I'm screwed or my sister got screwed. Before I panicked too much, I called Delta and talked to the nicest customer service lady I had ever talked to on the planet. Unfortunately, I didn't ask her name. Anyway to make a long story short, we got to talking and I found out that my ticket was indeed a real ticket except it was a special kind of new ticket. It was an e-ticket. Now I thought I knew what an e-ticket was and thanked the customer service lady, but before I got off the line I asked her if the airlines still served drinks after 2 in the morning. I was going to be flying all night and figured if anything I could atleast have a drink or two. She laughed and told me that as far as she knew I would be able to have my drink or two. She was a real sweetie and I wish I didn't have to hang up on her, but I did and before I remembered to ask her name. Crap. Not that it would have done me any good, but you never know. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------DEC-06-2002 [FRI] 1028 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I sometimes am so smart my head hurts. I decided that rather than just pack all the stuff I needed for my vacation in Connecticut, I was going to just use my credit card and buy a bunch of stuff on line and have it delivered to my sister's house. You know, the usual stuff like socks and underwear and shirts and pants and one pair of shoes. It all got there today. Now all I have to do is take a shower and put on some clothes the 22nd and go to the airport and get on the plane. After I go through security and all that of course. I am such a freakin' genius ain't I. Don't answer that. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------DEC-09-2002 [MON] 1205 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I called the federal government secret jury telephone hotline today. It's not exactly a hotline or secret or anything like that, but it could be because I never heard of it before. I mailed in my jury pool questionaire a couple of weeks ago and finally decided to call the number and find out if I'd won the get-off-the-jury-excuse sweepstakes. "Hello, you have reached the batphone... but I'm not here right now and Robin is probably off at college or doing something equally impressive so at the beep, please leave a message." Like just about everything today they had a menu of numbers you could press to find out if you had won or not. Press one, then two, then one again and entered my secret jury number that was exclusively mine and only mine muwahahahaha. Well it wasn't as funny as all that, but I did find out that they had fallen for my excuse and I wouldn't be entering the jury pool cycle again until September 29th of next year. You know I'm going to have to write an article about that adventure when the time comes. Muwahahahaha... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------DEC-22-2002 [SUN] 0105 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I couldn't remember where I put my airline tickets. I know that is so stupid, but I do stuff like that all the time. I have a big filing system here at my home office, and when I first got my ticket, I put it under A for Airline Tickets and in my T file I put a big poster that said Airline Tickets are in the A file. But guess where I put them? I looked everywhere in my A and T files and almost tore my little computer area to shreds looking for my freakin' tickets and guess where I found them? Under B for Boarding Pass! Sheesh, see what kind of crap I have to put up with all the time. HaHaHaHaHaHa. I am such a marooooon sometimes. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------DEC-23-2002 [MON] 1954 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The flight was pretty uneventful, which is always a good thing nowadays. Except for a couple interesting things, it was like all the flights I have ever taken in my life. One of the most interesting that almost happened was by some fortuitous coincidence a friend of mine (whom I met on the internet, but never met in real life) was flying into Seattle at about the same time I was taking off. We planned to meet, but we both were just late enough so we missed each other by just a few minutes. All I can add is DAMN!!! I haven't flown in a plane in over ten years so I'm not really up on all the latest airline gossip. I was always under the impression that you got a meal on the flights that were over two hours and that whenever they showed movies they were always free. I never been on a flight before where they had a movie so maybe everyone already has been paying and I cluelessly don't know anything about it. But what I got was a couple small cookies and that's it. Also, the movie on both flights (free thanks to Coca Cola) was, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". The live action one with Jim Carrey and not the cartoon version. It's an ok movie in my opinion, but two times in a row is too much for me. Just before we started boarding, they were also selling a First Class ticket upgrade for 75 dollar on a cash or credit and first come, first served basis. I was also singled out for extra searching and they did do a real thorough job of it and they were very polite. I arrived in Atlanta at about 5:30 in the morning. Walked around Gate A a few times, found a Starbucks, which doesn't seem unusual to me being that I'm from Seattle and they're all over the place there, but one lady got really excited when she saw it. "Where did you get that?", but I think she just wanted coffee. Got into Hartford and immediately got lost. I used my cell phone to call my sister Linda's cell phone and told her where I was and we hooked right up. Technology is so wonderful sometimes. Spent the next two days pretty drunk and doing some really stupid things like passing out in the back room of the bar where my sister Donna works and her boss is the one who found me. Stupid things like that. I can be a real jerk sometimes. After a couple days, I got it all out of my system and sleeping in the back room of the bar was the worse thing I did. Got to meet my nephew Matt who is my sister Linda's son which I hadn't seen since I left in 1991 and he was only three years old. He's now 14 and is a pretty cool kid. He caused a little bit of a controversy later in the week when Donna bought him the game "Grand Theft Auto" and she found out what the premise of it was, but he got to keep it anyway. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------DEC-25-2002 [WED] 2028 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- It's Christmas day and it's suppose to snow tonight. Or atleast that's what the weatherman said, but he said we were going to get about 4 to 8 inches starting at noon and it rained, then hailed, and then snowed, but all the rain and sleet began to freeze and that might not really seem too important for someone who never lived in any kind of snow country, but it really sucks big time. What happens when that happens is that the next day the snow on top is relatively easy to shovel, but all that ice underneath is a pain in the neck not only for shoveling but especially for driving. They sand and salt the roads out here so that makes it a tiny bit easier to drive and helps melt the ice on the roads. It didn't snow as much as all the weatherman said, except this one weatherman that my sister said was the most accurate of them all. If I remember correctly, his name was Dr. Mel on WTNH-TV Channel 8 from New Haven. The thing is, as my sister Donna said, is they've been talking about this storm for the last couple days like it was going to be some kind of a major storm and dump eight plus inches all over the place. All we ended up with was almost three inches, but atleast we got snow for Christmas. It would have been disappointing to come all this way and not atleast get some kind of white Christmas. Another thing is that I haven't watched any television at all in the last two months, and my sister has cable so I've been burning myself out watching TV. Of course you know we watched some of that holiday favorite "A Christmas Story" which was playing all day on TNT and they also had "Christmas in Connecticut" on TMC, but I didn't watch it, although that would have been ironic in a weird sort of way --don't you think? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------DEC-26-2002 [THU] 0856 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The one thing I don't miss about New England is the shoveling of the snow. I was complaining about how those New Englanders think snow is such a big deal and she said, "Hey, you're a New Englander too. Don't try to pull the wool over my eyes." Snagged in my own trap. I working on my two sisters life story webpages today. Like the one I did for me: http://web.archive.org/web/20030402050401/http://www.amystrange.com/MyLifeStory.html http://web.archive.org/web/20030402050401/http://www.amystrange.com/MySisDonna.html http://web.archive.org/web/20030402050401/http://www.amystrange.com/MySisLinda.html Thought it would be a good idea to write one up for my Mom and Dad and Memere and Pepere and maybe do one for each member of our genealogical family. My Mom and Dad were married on August 30th, 1955. My Memere and Pepere (on my Dad's side) were married on June 20th, 1932. My sister Donna and Mike were married on March 23rd, 2002. Just some info I just picked up and thought I would write it down so I don't forget or lose it. Marcia and Ken, a couple friends of Donna and Mike's, came over tonight and we sat around and drank and talked and had a good time. Donna's friend Marcia and Ken and me talked about the Salem Witch Trials for a little while and she promised to bring me a book about it that she had. She and Ken were really nice people. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------DEC-27-2002 [FRI] 1017 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- One thing I noticed while driving around with my sister Donna that we still laugh about is before the "BIG" snow storm on Christmas, there were alot of people who had plastic snowmen on their lawns. For some reason that just doesn't seem right. I can see having them in the summer. That would be funny, but to have them in the winter? There's just something not right about that for some reason. It just seems more ironic than anything else. We went driving around yesterday to do some shopping and we couldn't find not a one of them. It's almost like they all blew away. The wind was strong enough during the storm so that's quite possible. Went to a cemetary today that's not too far from my sister's house. It was a twenty minute walk. That's one of our ongoing themes for this Connecticut Christmas trip. We plan on going to cememtaries and read people's epitaphs and collect them and then come up with one of our own. I don't know what the name of the cemetary was that I went to though. Mostly, I found that the newer tombstones had nice pictures or were shaped in hearts and I don't think I found one that had an epitaph on it. The oldest one there was two 1 month old babies that died on the same day in September, 1772. I couldn't read the day --just the month and year and that's it. I couldn't find any others that were older. It's quite possible that they were the first to be buried there. It's also the cemetary where one of the Governors of Connecticut is buried. Chauncey F. Cleveland LLD is his name and he was also a Representative of Congress. He was born February 16, 1799 and died June 6, 1887. There were a few quotes of poetry like Robert Frost's "road less traveled" poem and a few "prepare yourself to follow me" quotes: " Behold my friend as you pass by, As you are now so once was I, As I am now so you must be, Prepare for death and follow. " One epitaph I did find that I liked was: " Life how short! Eternity how long! " I found the exclamation points interesting, because it was as if the death of the person wasn't enough of an exclamation point already. They had to add two more to the epitaph!!! One tombstone had the epitaph crammed onto a stone that was almost too small for all the words. At one point the stone carver screwed up and had to put one of those carrot symbols that was an upsidedown "V" that showed where he (or she) had forgotten to put an "i" and there was no room to put it after the stone was finished: " Lookoerthisnarrowhousewithfancy'startled Towhichyouhaftasfastasdayscanfly Hereliesyourfriendhiskindlestrightsaredone andcharitylamentsherfallenson " ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------DEC-29-2002 [SUN] 0932 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Not much really happened the last couple days. My sister Linda came down from Rhode Island for the weekend and we had a good bunch of laughs Saturday Night after a few drinks. My nephew Matt (Linda's son) was with us and we sat in Donna and Mike's kitchen drinking, talking, and laughing. It was the first time in a long time that all three of us were together and just relaxed and reminisced about our childhood and catching up on new gossip and having a good time --together. Marcia came over too and brought the she promised me, "The Devil in the Shape of a Woman" by Carol F. Karlsen. It focuses more on all of New England witchcraft trials rather than focusing solely on the Salem, Mass ones. It looks real good too and that was so nice of Marcia to remember to bring it. Worked on Donna's life story and my sister's too, or atleast got started on it (same as the above link): http://web.archive.org/web/20030402050401/http://www.amystrange.com/MySisDonna.html http://web.archive.org/web/20030402050401/http://www.amystrange.com/MySisLinda.html I also put up our Mom's Eulogy my sister Linda wrote and read. I think it is very well written: http://web.archive.org/web/20030402050401/http://www.amystrange.com/MOM-07302001-AA.html My Aunt Vi came down and my Uncle Paul also. Aunt Vi and my Mom were like the best of friends and I love her dearly. If you ever saw her you would think she was a clone of Jackie Onassis --swear to the Goddess. Uncle Paul is my godfather, and I always enjoy seeing him and talking to him. We always seem to be interested in the same things. Aunt Germaine came down and was telling us how busy she was. She's a sweetie and you can't help but like her, because she is just so nice and such a sweetie (I said that already didn't I?). Anyway, we figured out my schedule for the rest of my trip. Monday and Tuesday, we get ready for New Years Eve. New Year's Eve, we party. New Years Day we recover from New Year's Eve. Thursday, we have nothing at all planned and Friday or Saturday, we go to Cape Cod. Sunday, we try to get together with Dennis (my stepdad) and visit. Next Monday [JAN-06-2003], we take a trip up to Salem, Massachussetts, and Tuesday I catch the plane back to Seattle. The interesting thing about Cape Cod is that I have lived in New England more than half of my life and I've never been there. Just seems obvious to me that I should go there atleast once in my life? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------DEC-30-2002 [MON] 1457 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Shopping and cutting up vegetables and getting ready for the big party tommorrow night. Donna says there'll be around 60 people here --give or take ten or so. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------JAN-03-2003 [THU] 2112 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Most of the last three days has been spent preparing for, then throwing, then recovering from the New Years Eve party. I don't know if there were 60 people there because I didn't count them, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were atleast that many. I was in charge of my sister Linda's friend's digital camera and took fifty pictures. She said she would get her friend to download them from the camera and send them to me and I'll then link them to this article. The whole party started out pretty slow with only three people showing up before nine oclock and one of them being Linda, but once ten oclock rolled around, everyone started coming in droves. I don't even know who was there. My nephew Joey, who is also Linda's son, and his girlfriend showed up about nine or so also. I hadn't seen him since I left town in 1991. He works as a tattoo artist and also has written and drawn a comic book. I haven't seen his comic book yet, but I have seen his tattoos and they are really good. He also makes miniature carvings, out of clay I think, that represent severed heads and skulls and things of that nature that you see on horror flicks like the "Friday the Thirteenth" slice and dice series. He's always loved those kind of movies and his miniature carvings are filled with intricate details. They're all really good. He also made a small snowman for Donna for Christmas that was really good so he's not just a slice and dice artist. I'm going to put up a link to a sampling of his work when I get a chance and put up a webpage about it on my website. Anyway midnight came around and few minutes before, I ran around taking pictures of everyone with the digital camera. Midnight came and went and a good time was had by all. At about 1 am, I put in one of my tapes into the stereo that I made with a whole bunch of rockers, past and present, that I mixed together a few years ago. The tape simply rocked the place and again a good time was had by all. I met a lot of Donna and Mike's friends, but I don't remember most of them. I do remember meeting Leslie though a laid back girl who kind of believes in all the activist stuff I believe in. She also flies down to Cuba and places like that every now and again. She was fun to talk to. She is going out with a guy who acts in a few plays like Jesus Christ Superstar and can sing many of the parts really really good. His name was Paul. I was talking to them until they left at about seven in the morning and then I fell asleep not too long after. Joey and Mike got into it after I went to sleep and I heard a little of it but didn't have the energy to get up and see what it was about. Besides, I couldn't have been able to help matters any. To make a long story short, Joey left not too long after the melee. He called me later in the day and we talked about it and come to find out it was a long string of misunderstandings that were relatively easy to understand once all the stories were heard and put together. I'm going over there to see him the Monday before I take off and it looks like we'll also go see Dennis too while we're there. The rest of the week until today, we spent wondering how to arrange our schedule according to the weather, because another storm was coming into town. Watched the weather and movies and just basicly hung around the house. Marcia came over last night and watched a couple movies with us. I like Marcia, because she pays attention to you when you talk to her and she doesn't pretend to be listening to you at all, and because of that I think she is a really nice person. We men overall look at women as sex objects and because of that most woman torture themselves so we'll notice them. I enjoy talking to woman who think men are idiots, because we are. A woman who can treat me with the same respect I give them is more valuable than all the men in the world. There's a reason why we all call her Mother Nature and Lady Luck. I don't particularily care for men, but I do like Mike (Donna's husband), because he doesn't judge you right off the bat. He listens to you and laughs at your jokes like he really enjoys them and I think he really does enjoy them. Mike's really OK in my book. Anyway, we all watched a little bit of the movie "Attila", but that was more of a soap opera than a good biographical film, and I kept asking Marcia if this was historically correct. I must have annoyed her no end. I am so sorry Marcia for bothering you like that. I'm still curious though as to whether the ending of "Attila" was historically correct. I can't remember off the top of my head how he died, but someone mentioned beheading, but I just can't honestly remember. I know I won't remember to look it up when I finish typing this. We next watched the "Boondock Saints" and that was a pretty decent movie that was also at the same time a very crazy movie. It was still a relatively easy to follow even with all the flashback scenes. William Defoe played an egotistical gay forensics and crime scene expert who doesn't like cuddling with his lovers and towards the end actually doned a dress and looked pretty convincing at it too. But you could tell right off it was Defoe, but it still looked convincing. A really strange but well directed movie by Troy Duffy. He was the director and the screenwriter. When I searched Yahoo for any other credits, all I could find was the "Boondock Saints" movie and that was it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------JAN-03-2003 [FRI] 2138 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Stayed home all day for almost the fourth consecutive day in a row. Except for my ride into Brooklyn on Wednesday with Linda, I hadn't left the house since Monday. Donna decided that we needed to go out and get away from the house. So we not only took a walk in the woods and saw a skinny Yeti, but also went to where Donna works for a few drinks and snack. The walk in the woods wasn't as easy as it sounds. Since Tuesday, we've been keeping watch of the weather to see how the weekend would be to decide what day to go to Cape Cod. We had originally decided to go there on Friday, but there was a storm coming and when it came, we ended up getting atleast two inches by about one oclock in the afternoon (EST). The way the weather looked, the best day to go would probably end up being this Sunday. After we watched the weather and saw how the snow was falling, Donna started talking about the road that was between a hundred and two hundred yards from the house on your right as you took a left at the end of the driveway. It sounded like a good walk and I started to get ready to take off all alone and she wanted to know where I was going. Come to find out, she wanted to go too. See, this is a very good example of how much of an idiot I am. After a minute or two, we found what we thought was the road. We walked up one side of what looked like a barn and decided to walk up the other side. Almost as soon as we took a few steps up the other way, a skinny Yeti ran out from under cover of one of the stalls of the barn and took off up the road that we were getting ready to walk up. You could tell that it was a dog, but it looked like a mangy dog that was living in the wilds. It seemed to lope at first rather than run. It had a ratty tail with a puff of fur at the end. Mike thinks it's a coyote and I really have no reason to argue with him. We called it a skinny Yeti, because Mike doesn't believe in bigfoot or yetis and we thought it was funny. After the hike up the hill, across the field, and then back down to the road (walking through atleast two to three inches of snow); I went back to the Skinny Yetis hideout and left some dog food. We also all decided to just get out of the house and go into town to where Donna worked. Bartending is one of my favorite jobs. Where Donna works is a great place to hang out if you like to drink and enjoy good company. It was also kind of stressful, because Christmas Eve I really made an idiot of myself by sleeping in the backroom, but come to find out it wasn't the backroom but the front room where all the video games were and where everyone could see me. Leslie was there working and she came to talk to us while we enjoyed our drinks and snacks and so did Kim, who catered Donna and Mike's wedding reception, and Ronnie was there too. Paul, the "Jesus Christ Superstar" guy was there also. I'm so glad I got to see Leslie again tonight though, because I didn't think I'd see her again after the New Year's Eve party ended. I really liked her mellow smile and mellow attitude towards what was going on around her. She was fun to talk to also. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------JAN-07-2003 [MON] 1148 PST------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Went to Plainfield yesterday to visit the old neighborhood where grew up. Donna took a bunch of pictures of all the old places where we used to hang out when we were kids and living with our Memere and Pepere. Before we went to the old neighborhood, we stopped in to check out the Old Plainfield Cemetary on Cemetary Road. The oldest gravestone we saw was 1743 and I didn't know how much time I had to check everything out, so I didn't write anything down. I do remember that the oldest one was on top of a hill with a great view so that makes sense that it was the oldest. Also noticed that the same was happening here that it did at the other cemetary I visited in Hampton and that was that around 1800, they stopped putting down epitaphs or poems on the gravestones. There were some isolated ones that still had them, but mostly it was the other way around. Stopped in to see Uncle Nel and Aunt June. Their house looks almost the same as when we went there back when we were kids in grammar school. Except for their front porch and driveway canopy, it looked almost the same as I remember it. It was good to see them though. Alot of long hugs were had by all. That's been one of my favorite things about coming to Connecticut for Christmas is all the hugging. Earlier in the day, Donna had orchestrated a gathering of Dennis, my stepfather, and my Aunt Vi and my Uncle Paul. We all got together at the Greenville Inn, had a really good family-style chicken dinner, and talked and toasted and then went off to the Elks Club in Smithfield, RI, and drank and talked some more. When it came time to leave the Greenville Inn and the Elks Club, more long hugs were had by all. Today, is more of a laid back kind of day with practically nothing else going on at all. The only thing we may do is go see Uncle Normand and Aunt Naomi after seven tonight. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------Copyright (c) by Dave Ayotte---------------------------------- Connecticut Christmas-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- AmyStrange.org/Christmas-2002.txt