Fun and Games Dept

So we are at Syracuse Hancock International Airport awaiting our JetBlue flight to Orlando. We leave in 90 minutes or so. I am taking a few moments to surf the internet because that’s what people do in the airport these days. I see quite a few Macs within eyeshot. That’s a good thing.

I am really looking forward to this getaway. It’s been two years since we’ve been to Orlando and we are pretty much repeating what we did before: flying in, no rental car, onto Disney property and then leaving in four days. No touring around, no scouting out other parks. It’s the total Disney experience for us. I like it that way.

I plan on updating the blog and Flickr account quite a bit. We have a couple of computers, cameras, a video camera and a router with appropriate cabling so we can have the total internet experience whilst in our condo.

I’m such a geek.

Going on vacation always inspires me to make further vacation plans for the year. I have a feeling there are several flights in my near future.

009.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

So I have embarked on a “365 days of photos” project. I’m wiped out from being on call for the past week. So wiped out, as a matter of fact, that I forgot to set the timer on the camera before snapping this photo. I decided to keep the candid instead.

Now it’s time to go to sleep.

One of my favorite songs of all time. Remember when performers would actually sing LIVE on television programs? And she’s using 1970s era technology to do it!

Yvonne gets a w00t! in my book.

004.365, originally uploaded by iMachias.

I’d like to write a thought-provoking, topical, relevant and awe-inspiring blog post, complete with just a touchy of whimsy to keep it interesting, but there are pagers beeping in my life this week.

Superbowl Supper., originally uploaded by iMachias.

Because my husbear is a galloping gourmet, I thought I’d share our Superbowl Supper. That’s “pulled turkey” with asparagus, roasted yams and crackers with cranberry bruchetta.

Grandma Wegman helped out with the yams and the bruchetta.

Right on schedule, the “mid-winter blahs” made an appearance in my psyche today. I try really hard to fight the annual onset of the blues but sometimes I feel like it’s getting the best of me. To remedy the situation, I gathered up all the returnable pop and beer bottles and took them to the market and then browsed the “Nature’s Way” department, looking for a natural alternative to the crap offered elsewhere on the shelves. The sun peeked out on the ride home, so I took the long way and felt considerably better when I got home.

It’s the classic symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder. I need to buy one of those light boxes to get an apparently urgent dose of sun-like light.

Earl and I are headed to the House of the Mouse two weeks from today and I’m sure that’ll improve the situation greatly.

When I got home from the market, Earl presented me a tasty salad for lunch, using last night’s leftovers of baked chicken and pasta. He adds roasted red peppers to a good share of his dishes and I must say I always enjoy the added flavour.

Creative Leftovers., originally uploaded by iMachias.

It is my first bachelor night of 2009, Earl is in New Jersey for business meetings. For some reason the meetings scheduled for today and tomorrow are near Newark, but he is spending the night in Atlantic City.

Maybe he’ll win big.

Per tradition I had a healthy supper of popcorn, German potato salad and Peppermint Joe Joe cookies. The flavours competed with one another but mingled well once in my stomach. A bizarre combination, I know.

It seems that I have been on the phone a lot tonight: Earl has called a couple of times, I checked in with my mother and my father, I have chatted online with loved ones in various places. My iPhone has rang a few times. The only one I didn’t speak with was my sister and that’s because she lives in Helsinki, there is that whole time zone thing that throws the plan off a bit.

I like saying the word Helsinki. It doesn’t sound quite as amusing or pleasing to me as Mishawaka, Indiana, but it’s in the same ballpark. Just on a different continent.

The schedule dictates that I should have fallen asleep 45 minutes ago. My body screams that it’s time to get up and be adventurous, well, as adventurous as you can be in Upstate New York when it’s five degree fahrenheit outside.

I’m ready for spring.

So last night it was Bear Night in Albany. Earl was unable to go so I teamed up with our friend greg and made the trek on a very cold wintry night. We met up with the iBears (Sean and Jeffrey, Dan and Roger) and a dolphin (The Spirit of St. Lewis!) at Red Robin for dinner. The dinner was great; it was good to see the guys again (it has been much too long) and meet Lewis. We then trekked over to Rocks. I thought it was kind of early since it was around 9:00 when we left Red Robin but I figured we stake out a spot with the guys, get started on the cosmos and observe the bears that were making their way through the door.

We arrived at 9:20 p.m. and the place was mobbed!

Since it early in the night and most bears don’t venture out until after 10 p.m., more and more guys (and two women at the bar) just kept packing in tighter and tighter. It got to the point where you could barely move in the place. Greg was stationed directly behind me; I could see the iBears and Lewis smooshed up against the wall between the two bathroom doors.

The iBears and Lewis made an understandably hasty exit and left to go across the street; Greg and I decided to brave it out for a while longer. It was then that I realised that we had ended up near the front of the place without any conscious effort, we were just sort of herded along. Greg went to grab the coats from the coat check. Apparently someone in that department was having some sort of hissy fit because he would not retrieve a jacket for anyone until he had to get five. “I’m not walking downstairs for one jacket!” So Greg stood there waiting until four others decided to get their jacket, and then the jackets could be retrieved. When the one with the hissy fit returned, he threw the five jackets at the nearest bears and let them figure out who’s jacket belonged to whom.

Leather theme. Bears. Five black leather jackets. Not funny.

All in all we decided that we had a good time and enjoyed our adventure in the cold, dark night but I thought it would have been better if bear night had stayed at the Phoenix.

Perhaps it’ll be better in the summer when people actually want to use the patios under the stars.