After everyone ate their fill of Christmas good cheer, the Olsen’s bid a fond adieu to our step-aunt as well as Meredith and her beau. And then we headed off to one of our favorite holiday pastimes: the Christmas movie. Every year, we pick one film that everyone can agree upon and we go and pad the holiday cinema gate.
This year, we all decided that we wanted to see The Tale of Despereaux. Iwant do all of my loyal readers the disservice of a movie review. I am altogether unskilled at objectively assessing films. Indeed, I am a sap. And I love a good morality story. This movie was both. Without giving away too many secrets, the story tells the tale of mice, rats, kings, princesses and a host of folks in between. By the end of the movie, redemption is the message for everyone on screen – and for me as well. Through courage and selflessness, the tragic heroes are redeemed from their own faults and frailties. I just love happy endings like this!
When we got home from the theater, the entire crew retired for a nice night’s sleep.
When the morning came, it was time for Cindy to take daughter #2 to the airport. Dana had an early flight that morning as she needed to be back at practice in the afternoon. Cindy got her to the airport. The flight was on time in departing and arriving. So she made it to practice with plenty of time to spare.
While Cindy was taking Dana to the airport, I made sure the new Bluetooth rear view mirror was working in Cindy’s car. It was quite simple to set up and make it operate. I still have some tweaking to do. But that will waituntil after the New Year. But when Cindy returned, we tried out all the new gear. With a grin on my face, I proudly showed her how everything worked. And I am glad to say that Cindy is quite pleased with the electronics!
After a lot of cleaningand a fair bit of laundry, we started packing for our trip to Georgia. I had my samll bag with my clothes and Cindy’s laptop. And she had quite a large bag with everyting she needed to take. We hit the hay early for the early-bird drive to the airport.
As noted in my last post, we got up quite early and headed off to the airport only to be met with flight delays. The eqyipment was indeed in Missouri, but the crew did not arrive the previous night. So the flight was cancelled. Thereplacement crew arrived the next day an hour later than anticpated so the flight was delayed another hour. ANd then we had a horrible problem while boarding. One of the passengers apparently had a heart attack while boarding the plane. So everyone was stuck in the gangway to the plane while emergency medical crews came on board, assessed the patients condition and then whisked the patient off the plane. Fortunately, everything turned out fine – though I can’t tell you the exact condition of the patient now. But he appeared well while deplaning in a wheelchair.
Once everyone reloaded the plane, we got out onto the tarmac. And then another problem arose. Within a thirty minute span, the temperature had dropped twenty degrees – which was below freezaing. So the gentle rain that was falling when we first boarded had become a froen rain that needed to be treated. So we waited on the tarmac while the place was de-iced. We finally became airborn five hours after our scheduled departure.
When we arrived, it was time to meet Dana and go out to dinner. We chose a simple asian “fast food” joint that had some super noodle offerings. I chose a yummy shrimp and soba noodle dish. Dana and Cindy had some other dishes. Normally, we share meals when we eat this way. But we didn’t share that night. Thank goodness we didn’t share (as you’ll learn in the next part of the Olsen Christmas saga). After dinner, we went back to the hotel and wet to bed.
The next day was all ours – after Dana finished practice. Cindyand I found a great breakfast nook call the Java Jive. I just loved their menu and their homestyle joi de vivre. We picked up Dana and headed over to the High Museum of Art. The High Museum was having a show called “The First Emperor” which featured the art of the first Chin dynasty – including a number of terra cotta warriors. We scheduled a visit for Tuesda morning as we couldn’t fit it into that day.
After we left the High Museum, we headed off to see my Dad and his wife. And while I could go into great detail about how thrilling it is to see my Dad, I’ll just summarize. My Dad is doing well, though his eyesight is failing. But his wife take exceptional care of him. So he is in need of nothing. And like myself, he has gained a few extra pounds in thelast couple of years. Good women (and lack of a commitment to regular exercise) will have that effect on men. We feasted for a couple of hours. We yakked about everything. And we lined Dana up with a way to see Dad and Susan on a more regular basis. So our mision was accomplished.
After a few hours, we needed to head back to the hotel as Dana needed to get up early for her pre-game shoot-around. So we headed back to Atlanta. We dropped Dana off at school and Cindy and I headed back to the hotel where we settled in for the night.