We're back home and Christmas is approaching too quickly for my comfort. Today I bought my dollar gifts (at the dollar store, of course) for Christmas Eve and it was painless as I decided quickly once I had an idea. Cards had been sent before we left for Cleveland. There will be more to send tomorrow, plus a little more shopping to pick up a couple of last minute things.

All in all, not bad. But DAMN, the holidays are here already. There are things we need to do around here since since we're having the story reading at our place on Christmas Eve. See, it works out like this: on December 24th around a dozen of us get together at someone's house for dinner (this year it's Martha's), then we go to someone elses house to open up the dollar gifts (this year it's the Oltions), and then we go to yet another house to read stories outloud. Usually it's Christmas ghost stories, but I don't think it's been a hard rule. I've heard science fictions stories read, too.

Anyhoo, we'll be reading stories at the little duplex apartment Ximena and I share. This is the first time we'll be hosting part of the festivities. Seems like about time. We may not be in this apartment next year (and this apartment has a lot of writer history) and I've been part of this xmas group since the late nineties. So we have snacks to buy and pumpkin loafs to bake and things to set up, oh my.

I'd like have a story to read (it's at our place, after all) which means I need to write one. That can be done. Of course I'm behind on the novel, out of routine, without the sweet momentum. The last bit of work done on the novel was on Monday afternoon at a Caribou coffeeshop in Cleveland. I wrote a thousand words. I barely wrote 2000 words the entire time I was gone. Alas, I might find it worthwhile and rewarding to finish a story to read, and then to send. Novel work will begin no later than the 26th.

This has already been a long and rambling journal entry, but how was Cleveland, anyway? Kat and Eric have a wonderful big house I love staying in. Their daughter, Caroline, is a year old, who I met the year before--my first time visiting and attending Kat's Soup Party. The soup was just as outstanding as last year. Thai ginger was my favorite. I wasn't overwhelmed by all the party guests like I was last year. I stuck around on the main floor and didn't go flee to the quiet sanctuary of the attic room where we were sleeping. Okay, I did go up there twice, but it was only for a few minutes. Last year I had more visits for longer periods. This year was different because I knew people and remembered some people (and they remembered me). All was well.

Kat and Eric took Ximena and I out to dinner at the Melting Pot, a great fondue restaurant. We would have settled for the bread and cheese fondue, and the dessert fondue. The main course fondue with its meats and fish weren't as satisfying.

The travel, well, that was a bit of a pain. We drove up to Portland (two hour drive) to catch our flight. We parked our car in front of Jay's house so we could save on long-term parking, but I bought Jay breakfast the morning of our flight. After that, it was fifty minutes on the Trimet to make it to the airport. Upon getting to our gate, we learned the flight was already delayed for two hours. The problem was Chicago, where our connecting flight was. Winds. Chicago has a problem with winds, of course. I heard experienced travelers talking about how they should have known better than flying into Chicago this time of the year because of the weather. Winds, snow, and ice.

Two hour delay meant we would most likely miss our connecting flight which was on another airline. United booked us a backup flight later in the evening if we should miss our connecting flight with American. Which was good.

So we finally make it in the air two hours later. Once in Chicago, we needed to find out if our American flight was delayed, too, or see if we missed it. Chicago O'hare is a big airport. We arrived in the United part of the terminal and we couldn't find a departure/arrival screen to tell us if we were in time for our connecting flight with American Airlines. However, we did find out were we needed to go and it was like traveling across town and we needed to take the lightrail to get there. Once we finally arrived at American, we had to stand in another line to check in. We learned the flight had been delayed and the plane hadn't left yet and they were closed to additional bookings. Well, thankfully the woman at the counter called the gate and got them to wait. After giving us our tickets, she told us to RUN.

Run we did. And to our surprise, we had to go to security, AGAIN. I never had to go through security on a connecting flight before. After we got through security, we ran some more. At the gate, there was still a line of people getting on board the plane. Whew. When we got to the front of the line and handed our tickets over, we were told they weren't boarding passes. Where were our boarding passes? What the hell? There was a quick phone call, IDs were whipped out again, and boarding passes issued. Whew.

I think we got the last two tickets for the flight. We sat at the very back of the plane. Well, we got into Cleveland two hours late and we didn't have to use United backup flight. All was well. I still think I might want to avoid Chicago next year.

The trip back was uneventful. Just tired. I had gotten three hours of sleep the night before we left and we had to get up at three-thirty in the morning. There was a small problem with the taxi (they had trouble with two of our credit cards). I slept the entire second leg of the flight, Chicago to Portland. Nearly four hours of sleep. And I needed it for the two hour drive home. On the drive home we stopped at a Chalet restaurant to eat and we discovered pumpkin pancakes served with apple cider syrup. Mmmmm. A worthy find.

Now we're back. We're catching up on Christmas, and I'm catching up on e-mail and journals. I see Mike has become a father (Congrats to you and Elizabeth, Mike!), Greg has a story in the new issue of Amazing Stories (Yay! I remember that story from the Strange Horizons workshop and I gotta read it in published form), Dayle sold a story (Yay!), and Sarah sold a story (Yay!). What more good news is in store for me?