01/01/2006 - 10:51 PM

The reason this song comes to mind is that when my grandmother died, I didn't find out about it for two days. I was in California for work in February 2002, and was on a roaming network where I wasn't alerted about voice mail messages. When I got into San Francisco to visit with Huntington and the Chief, it dawned on me that I hadn't gotten any messages in a few days, and got the bad news from several family members trying to get hold of me. Long story short, she slipped quickly into a coma, and died a day or so later. The kids flew into Syracuse to see her one last time, but there was a major snowstorm on its way, so they all flew home to avoid getting trapped. They had a memorial service for her in the chapel of the nursing home that she was staying in, and we didn't get a proper send-off until May of 2002, when her ashes were placed in a mausoleum at the church she attended growing up.

The mourning process was extremely mixed up for me, in part because I felt guilt for not being available while everyone was looking for me. I was definitely upset, but not the way I would have thought. My grandmother meant so much to me, and I felt a kinship with her that I would never feel with anyone else outside of Matt or my mother. It took returning back to California for another trip to the same place of business to finally drag it out.

My flight got in about 9:30, and I had to drive from San Francisco to Modesto, which was about 90 minutes or so. On the way, Dan Fogelberg came on the radio, and I just started bawling. "Same Old Lang Syne" is a song about revisiting your past, and possibly making peace with unanswered questions. I don't know if the lyrics resonated with me as much as the melody, which is sad and beautiful all at the same time, but it did the trick.

Matt and I celebrated Christmas and New Years all at the same time last night. As predicted, he loved the Abba box set, but I think he was even more excited than I originally thought. About a half hour later, he was already on his laptop, ripping all the CDs onto his iTunes. Any doubt I had about paying that much for Abba (I'm not a big fan) flew out the window. We sat and watched Abba videos right through midnight, with our only cue being the morons one floor down yelling at the tops of their lungs.

I can safely say that I did nothing productive today. Our only obligation was a party that my insurance agent was having this afternoon at his place south of Denver, so we made the trip down, had a good time, and came back home. It's been a quiet night, with the exception of a li'l somethin' somethin' about an hour ago. What a way to welcome the year!

What I'm Listening To: Dan Fogelberg - Same Old Lang Syne

First Word That Comes To Mind: remember

What I'm Currently Reading: Nothing at the moment