Happy Holidays!

Since it's Christmas Day, I thought it might be nice to do a quick update posting to wish all of my faithful (and not-so-faithful) readers a very happy holiday season and fabulous new year!

As for me, I'm on my own with my boyfriend today, actually getting ready for my family's arrival tomorrow. My sisters and two nephews were kind enough to travel a bit of a distance to see me this year (as they did last year), to spare me the trouble/extra cost of flying to the midwest to see them after making the trek over the Atlantic a week ago. They'll stay with us until Dec. 30, so I'm really looking forward to that. My cousin who lives a couple of hours from here will also be coming tomorrow, and possibly staying the night.

Unfortunately, however, we made a special trip to a Japanese market in New Jersey (across the Hudson from Manhattan) Sunday (a 4.5 hour trip each way) and returned yesterday, but failed to finish cleaning the house before we went. Thus, at least part of our Christmas holiday will be spent cleaning up and organizing the house for our guests. Fun, fun! For us, Christmas really starts tomorrow, though, so that's o.k.

So, the schedule will be: clean, possibly visit some nearbye friends (if time allows), cook special Japanese food (Sukiyaki, to be exact) for our holiday meal, go to a movie (probably "Charlie Wilson's War"). Hope we can get it all done!

I must say I am missing Malawi lately, especially the weather. We'd planned to walk around Manhattan a bit on Sunday night, but it was literally pouring down rain, and so windy and miserable we just stayed in. We actually ordered in pizza, which is one of the 'simple' pleasures I missed while in Malawi. Though I rarely indulge in delivered pizza while here in the U.S., I suppose I just missed having the option. On a cold, blustery, rainy night, it managed to hit the spot.

One other adventure since arriving back has been the strangeness of driving here again. Ironically, staying on the RIGHT side of the road hasn't been the problem. Now, it's figuring out the opposite side directionals/lights/wipers again (wipers/lights on right (up for higher speed/down for lower speed), directional on left (up for right, down for left)-- Ya, I keep turning on the wipers when I need to turn, and confusing up from down and right from left. Eventually, I'll have to go back to the opposite way after arriving back in Malawi Jan. 7. Should be fun. As always, I'll keep ya 'posted.'

Another interesting observation is the silence. The place where I live in Malawi, though rather remote, is much noisier. If it's not the roosters, it's the random fish/vegetable peddlers yelling out the specials of the day, or neighbors/kids yelling "ODIE!" (similar to "Anybody Home?" in English), or dogs barking, or other signs of life that tend to seep into my windows. I really miss those noises (well, maybe not the dogs at midnight and the roosters at 4 a.m.), but generally, this place is too quiet for me. Perhaps the weather has something to do with it. Ya, the weather. Everyone's inside, and apart from the random car whizzing by now and then, there's very little sign of life here.

So, for now, it's just us and the cats. More signs of life arriving tomorrow. I can't wait! Tiwonana!!