Friday was kind of a busy day. That night was the holiday party for David’s office, and we had hotel reservations for the night, so the point was to get down there as early as possible and relax a little before going to the party.

The relaxing part didn’t happen, owing to the typically “lousy” Friday commute traffic (“lousy” is the current term of choice used by the local traffic reporters on WBEZ).

Work was work, but I’d arranged to go in early so I could leave “early.” This was theoretical – I ended up leaving about 20 minutes later than I’d hoped, but that was still better than it could have been. I took an hour to get to the hotel (allowing for only one wrong turn, which I figured out quickly enough). At least I could enjoy the news on National Public Radio on my way down. It amused me no end to hear that Justice Department lawyers thought that the Texas resdistricting plans Tom Delay spearheaded were illegal, but they were overruled by senior officials. And it wasn’t political or anything, according to a spokesman, who said that all those lawyers, who were in the Civil Rights department, had a liberal agenda. Oh, brother.

‘Tis the season, I thought. Anyway, I made it at last, got changed quickly, and we went off to the dinner party. David’s brother (Hi, Mitch!!!) had suggested ComedySportz as an entertainment choice when Cynthia, the lady in charge of the annual arrangements was looking for something different for this year’s party.

It was a big hit, and everyone seemed to have a great time, even Cynthia when she got pulled up to play a game called Power Lunch. I think it was the best holiday party ever, frankly. Way, way better than sitting around watching the creepy DJ trying to teach people to do the Electric Slide every year. Different DJ this year, too.

A little snow had fallen when we left the next morning, but there was almost no traffic (lousy or otherwise) and it only took me about 15-20 minutes to retrace my route. David ran an errand and still beat me home, because apparently ripping along at almost 70 mph is still too frigging slow (I had to move over to the slow lane because I got tired of the way people were ostentatiously speeding past on either side, then slowing down. Dickwads).

The rest of the day was spent in making it up to Riley, who had spent the night alone. A good time was had by all.

I had volunteered to do a laundry run Thursday for one of the local PADS shelters; their regular person couldn’t make it and I got a call the night before. I didn’t have all the details on the pickup point, but I managed. Basically, I picked up bags of dirty laundry at lunch – easy, given where it was – and then dropped it off and picked up clean laundry sets at a nearby hospital after work. It was a long day, with lots of stuff going on at work, but the laundry thing was oddly relaxing.

Since I can’t really commit the time to doing shift work for PADS, this seems like a good way to help them out. At least one other person from Holy Moly will be doing it, possibly two.

I’ve never done volunteer work before – this is one way to back in to it, but it’s a little solitary. At some point, some of us from Holy Moly will sign up to host a meal for the shelter.

Yes, Santa can simultaneously ride his snowmobile AND motor around in his Yuletide power boat. He’s the ultimate multi-tasking guy, you know.

Actually, this is pretty tame for the BHOI: I’ve blogged before about the many, many inflatable lawn blimps they’ve displayed over the years.

One thing that I notice every time the inflatables come out in this area is how disturbing they look during the daytime. Most people around here don’t keep them inflated and illuminated in the daytime, so that leaves puddles of holiday-color fabric on the suburban lawns – they look oddly festive and corpse-like at the same time.

Tonight it’s a snowy night, so it was a pretty evening for driving around running errands. The houses with the tasteful decorations (and pretty much none of these have inflatables) are nice to look at, and the ones with lawn blimps look their best on a dark, snowy night.

There’s something so lonesome about driving up a quiet street on a snowy night and seeing yard after yard of bright, empty inflatable decorations, though. Brr.

Via: Flickr Title: Bhoi By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 3 Dec ’05, 10.43pm PST