Spring Sojourn

Today was spent planning out Spring break. My colleagues tell me Death Valley is a sight to behold in spring when the temperatures are bearable and the millions of flowers bloom as if overnight. Death Valley - the name itself is beguiling and one always hear of it in association with people crawling near death under a merciless sun or vehicles churning up clouds of dust on long lonely roads amidst barren rocks and parched earth. Courtesy of hollywood. So Death Valley always holds a certain morbid fascination. The reality could be very different. We shall see.

I am so not good at planning these events. Unlike YY. It took me hours looking and re-looking at different websites, checking out rates and availability, googling for directions, finding out what makes budgetary sense without ending up in some unsafe dump. Wish YY were here. I miss her terribly.

So the reservation is made. Our last trip before Nic heads off to college. Or maybe we can still squeeze in a short summer trip. Yellowstone maybe? I don't know how long more we will stay in this vast land. Hopefully many more years but who knows?

So I have not done anything on my vacation except for this. But I have been sleeping, if not totally restfully, at least with enough hours to pay off some of the sleep debt that inevitably accumulates during normal work weeks. It is wonderful to be able to just sleep on without having to check the clock. And the Man and I did put in a couple of hours on the tennis court over the last couple of days. Thank you fuddy.

I forget Christmas eve. It was quite some night. There were a lot more people than I had figured would be coming. Peter and Mary, CJ and Tommy and their 2 boys, Amy and Elvin and their two girls, Patrick and Jenny and 2 nephews and niece from Singapore, Su-ann and her mom, Lai's family and our foursome. That's quite a crowd. The food was yummy - the Lai's are good cooks - but more than that, the company was really enjoyable. Lai's brother and sister-in-law (Patrick and Jenny) are very friendly. Between them, Su-ann who is still schooling but also works at Old Towne Cafe and speaks with a distinct Singapore accent even though she is from JB, and Lai, we laughed all night. So much so, we forgot the time and only broke up after 2:00 am.