Impending

It's been a 6 day fevery mucus-fest at our house.  I took Thursday and Friday off work, even.  I kept the kids home on Friday too (so not "off" entirely then, but off enough given that it meant not having to go out in 22F with daggering gusts of cold wind up to 40 MPH).  Today, I'm in the office and, it being academia, NO ONE else is here. 

Ahhhhhhh.

Blissfully quiet.  Think of all the work I could do if only I could tear myself away from internet frivolities and the stroking of my own ego with this blog thing . . .

Anyway.  Wednesday we embark on our drive from Baltimore MD to Sycamore IL: a journey of two days (each way), in a vehicle with two kids, two adults, one vomitous/ nervous hound dog and a lot of gear.  I have been watching a lot of Michael Palin travelogues lately (see above re: days off sick), and this has a feel of his largley blighted "Pole to Pole" journey about it to me, in particular a scene in which, near the south pole, a small plane flies away leaving Michael et al. to wait in a small tent, in the middle of nowhere, for an unspecified number of hours, with scant supplies.

I also watched Bela Fleck's "Throw Down Your Heart" while I was out sick.  It made me deliriously ambitious to actually play the banjo perched in the corner of our living room.  I want to sing folk tunes though, not bluegrass, and by "folk tunes" I don't necessarily mean American ones.  There, then.  An amibition for the post 40 years.

And I have a New Year's Resolution too, while I'm at it: go to bed at 8 more often because eating dinner at 5 and then going to bed that early really seems to agree with me (see above re: being out sick). 
(Husband points out I must have turned 80, not 40, back in August.)