Havana Daydreaming

Thank goodness Brenna is home.

I am happy to report that she had a fantastic "Girls Weekend" and she absolutely deserved it.

Now, I would report how my weekend went with all the kids, my work demands, a visit to the office Sunday morning after a visit to my house by my boss on Saturday, and one broken computer laptop that will probably cost me more than my right arm is worth... After thinking about it, I feel my weekend report might be a bit too negative for this brilliantly funny and positive family blog to handle, so I'll move on to the real thought behind this post.

I was called by a certain close friend of mine who is on a vacation binge that I can only look at as epic. Fortunately, I am part of one of these trips later this year, and I can't wait...

He calls me from Key West to gloat. And after receiving a couple of explicative laden voice mails about me not picking up my phone, I called him so he could officially, and gleefully, tease me that he was there I and I am here.

I was waiting for him to break into boisterous and somewhat off key song on the phone:

The beer is too cold, the daiquiri’s too fruitful
There’s no place like home when it’s this far away
I don’t care what they say...

-Jimmy Buffet

I doggedly defended living in Birmingham this time of year... And I do like it here, but man I could use some warm sunny stuff pretty soon.

It's like I have been magically transported to Portland this winter. It hasn't stopped raining. The kids are cooped up, it's cold, and riding a bike with suicidal earthworms, that have been flooded out of their homes onto the roads, leaves interesting (and gross) stuff to clean off the bike after a ride.

I decided, Dangit! I'm gonna have some warm fun here if it kills me, so when I got home, I threw off the suit and tie, and put on my loudest Hawaiian shirt (over a long sleeve tee shirt...it's winter for goodness sake and I'm not totally stupid). I put on every Jimmy Buffet album I own in a shuffle playlist and got to work on my change in lattitude.

I cooked up some Hawaiian chicken for dinner. Never mind that I didn't notice that I didn't have actual Pineapple until I had to make due with sauteed pears after noting that I was lacking this major ingredient to my recipe. The kids liked it enough...meaning not much of it got thrown on the floor, and the wife liked it...meaning she didn't have to cook it.

As I cleaned up after dinner and was feeling a little bit more island-ish, I stepped out back (onto my massive deck) with my drink to look at the stars. As I looked up into the heavens and imagined a starry night with warm breezes and waves crashing on some very far away shore...it began to snow.