First Days of Winter Break

It's been a whirlwind few days.  On Sunday, I left my seminary apartment to spend less than 24 hours with my parents in Williamsburg.  We went to church, and in the afternoon, I got to hear them sing in the chorus of The Messiah (for more, see this blog post).

Monday morning, I left Williamsburg, came back briefly to my seminary apartment, and then went to the airport (BWI) to pick up my spouse, who is up from North Carolina.  We found an Allegiant fare that got him here and back for less than it would cost him to drive--hurrah!  We made our way back through pre-rush hour traffic, and had a quiet evening, plus a walk to see Christmas lights.

It's become clear that my spouse needs a better winter coat, one that actually zips up, so we set out to Burlington Coat Factory, which is now just called Burlington.  

We got there early, because the website said the store opened at 7.  It may have opened early, but other stores in the indoor mall did not.  I was expecting hordes of Christmas shoppers, but we were the only ones.  We found really good deals on coats and shoes for him.  We almost never find good deals on shoes, which is how his shoes become so threadbare.

Bolstered by our success at Burlington, we went to Wegmans.  Here, too, we had successful shopping.  We did exit at the wrong level of the parking garage, where we wandered round and round, looking for our car.  Apparently we're not the only ones.  One of the employees who was getting off shift told us we had likely parked at the upper level.  She saved us some time, since we had decided to check the lower level.

I was so proud of myself, because I didn't lose the car at the airport parking garage.  I didn't think to pay attention at Wegmans, a much smaller garage.  But we did find the car and headed back to my seminary apartment.

We went to the seminary library, one last opportunity before it closes for the holiday.  My spouse checked out some Philosophy books on John Locke.  We had fun browsing and seeing how much shelf space was devoted to which philosophers, some of which had volume after volume of collected works.  It's hard to imagine that future students will see those kinds of collections gathered in volumes made of paper housed on a library shelf.  I tried not to think about the future of intellectual thought and the moment that we're in.

We spent the rest of the afternoon making a big pot of chili and experimenting with this cocktail recipe.  We got the TV to communicate with the computer so we could watch a movie.  We went to bed early.  It was a delightful day.

Today we'll venture further afield.  It's going to be one of the last nice days, weather wise, for awhile, so we'll make our way to the zoo.  Later today, we'll turn the leftover chili into nachos--yummm.

Yesterday my spouse asked, "What would you be doing if I wasn't here?"  I said I didn't know, because I've never lived here when I didn't have classwork that needed to be done.  It's been delightful, finding out.