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00:54 - 20.02.07
Xin Nain Kuai Le (Happy New Year)
The Friday morning commute was pretty tame compared to the previous days last week. A lot less passengers because of our long "family day" weekend, you see. No one gone fishin' but a lot of skiers out looking for good, fresh powder - snow that is. Chatted with one new young woman who uses my stop about the unpredictability of the busses. In the drivers' defense, the road and driving conditions make it impossible for them to be like clockwork in their timing in winter. Quite frankly my attitude is that I'd rather arrive at my destination late and in one piece than otherwise. On really cold mornings, I also prefer that they wait for the person running for the bus rather than making them wait for the next one. A little humanity and kindness can go a very long way sometimes even if one doesn't see the results.

The day at my son's home was great - got a lot of reading in while my grand-daughter practiced pulling herself up on the furniture and stairs. It won't be long before she is keeping her parents running after her flights of fantasy. My son called to say my daughter-in-law was going out to dinner with some of her work friends from her last job. When he arrived home at the end of the day, he asked if I wanted to shop at one of the Chinese supermarket chains in the city before going home. It is located in one of my favorite malls - the Asian one in my community. That was where my daughter-in-law and her friends had gone, so he was going there to pick her up anyway. My grand-daughter loves field trips and was quite excited when we dressed her in her pink snowsuit. Arrived at the mall crowded with shoppers preparing for the Asian New Year's celebrations. The mall was packed, but it was much like Christmas shopping in mainstream malls that last week. Lots of decorations in gold and red with tinkling music piped in throughout to create that festive feeling. There were huge displays of seasonal delicacies and the sales were great. Although it is a Chinese food chain, it carries cooking supplies for most of the Asian community so I was able to restock with Japanese and East Indian specialties too. My local grocery store stocks a lot of additional Asian products, so price determined what I bought at that point. My daughter-in-law had spent her time waiting for us to arrive in the video store. New movies to ring in the Year of the Fire Boar too. I enjoyed being part of the crowd for certain. Arrived home and put together a stir fry that would see me through meals for the weekend.

Saturday I began by trying to get all my washing up and laundry done so my youngest could have clear access to those facilities next day. Around noon the phone rang and it was number four son. Would I be willing to babysit their new son so they could go out together for a belated Valentines Day dinner. With bells on. My grandson is 4 months old. I love cuddling babies as you know, dear diary. They arrived around 4:30 to pick me up. Their place is cozy and compact so I had no trouble finding anything I needed. My daughter-in-law is still breast feeding, so the young master was not all that pleased being offered milk out of a bottle. He was, however, very pleased with the apple juice and the water grandma was able to offer him. He likes my singing too, or at least he laughed... - mostly Beatles - and others - tunes and no I don't know why I chose those, it just seemed right. Lately my brain has been creating it's own internal "playlist" of songs and I have no idea why some of the music pops into my head when it does. It is entertaining, in a weird way, trying to figure out what in the subconscious is triggering the continuous and constantly changing concert. I think that I had about four hours of playtime with him before his mom and dad returned. They had had a great meal at one of our local steak houses and seemed to have enjoyed one of their first nights out alone since his birth. Need to keep those bonds strong for certain. They stopped at the local general store with me so I could pick up some supplies that my youngest had requested, then dropped me off at home.

My youngest's return flight was due around 11:30 pm, so I just puttered about with correspondence and reading my e-zines to pass the time. About the time he should have been landing I checked the airport's arrivals board on-line. Delay by 2 hours was what it read, with no explanation. At that moment the phone rang. My youngest calling from Denver. The airline had told their passengers that there was a fire in our airport's control tower and that it was uncertain whether the flight would be able to continue on or not that evening. Oi. I hadn't heard any sirens, so it seemed to me that the fire couldn't have been that serious. There is an on-site fire team, but the fire fighters stationed one community south of my home often attend as backup when there are issues at that site. I spent the next couple of hours watching the arrivals board with the estimated time of arrival of his flight changing almost continuously. Around 2 in the am it disappeared completely as an arrival. The next scheduled flight from Denver appeared to be for around noon on Sunday. No call from my youngest, so I assumed he had been grounded for the evening. Went to bed clutching the phone in case more news was forthcoming. I didn't hear him pounding on the front door about an hour later - he'd left his keys here, you see. Fortunately his cell phone was with him and working, all at the same time, so he just called me that way. Woke up from a rather interesting dream to go open the door for him. We talked for about an hour while he ate a bit of lasagna. He said the headline that caught his eye as he was leaving Columbus was of the US president trying to reinstate the draft to find the 20,000 soldiers to be sent to Iraq. I asked him if it was located in a credible newspaper, but he really doesn't know much about the media in the US. He also said one of the things that caught his attention, that wouldn't even be an issue in Canada, was the sign in the seniors home stating that firearms and other weapons were forbidden on site. Well yes, in Canada we only carry crossbows you know. We then headed of for our respective bedrooms for the balance of the night and all of Sunday morning too. When I woke up I started doing his laundry, while he continued to sleep. More stories about his travels when he woke up, but he was obviously suffering from jet lag and the very long hours - about 12 altogether with the stopover in Denver and the delayed flight home. He needed most of the day to just rest. In addition a very strong Chinook wind howled outside all day. Pain times two. The one good thing was that the original flight he had booked home - the one I insisted be changed just because of a gut feeling - that would have had a long stopover in Chicago was mid-flight when the problems in our control tower occurred. It was diverted to one of the sister cities in this province. No word whether those passengers were put on a morning flight when it was clear to do so or if they were put on a bus that would take about three hours to drive the balance of the distance to this city, but either way he would have returned home even later with, likely, his luggage somewhere in transit still - all his work clothes included. Today we just shopped for groceries after I did my banking. Because it was a provincial holiday, his banks were closed so he still can't straighten out the credit card problem. He still was complaining of unusual fatigue while we were shopping. I'm hoping he didn't catch something while enroute home. Probably just jet lag and the chinook effect combined I'm thinking. And that's the end of this tale. Good night dear diary.

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