Still Life, With Cats

Technically I am off work this entire week, except that yesterday I had a conference call and some stuff I had to send out, and some updates to do, and this morning I had another conference call and so on, but I made it very clear that after 10am, I was going to be out of reach. I suspect my inbox will be in a mild state of panic by the time I return, but oh well.

I picked up my little sister and her family at the airport this morning, by doing my usual double-loop around the airport, because ever since they put in the new parking garage and reconfigured the parking, I get confused every single time I go there. The signs do not help, as they point to the different terminals, and thus make it seem as if there is different parking for each terminal, when in reality there isn’t and would it kill them to put up a sign saying ALL parking?

Anyway. I am at least smart enough to give myself extra time for the inevitable ‘how do I get to the damn parking garage’ kerfluffle, and was there waiting for them at the bottom of the escalators as they came down to get their luggage. Then we headed home, after making a brief stop to get coffee for my sister (who likes a little blood in her caffeine system).

When we got home, my sister and I (okay, primarily it was her, while I occasionally handed her things and shooed the cats off the kitchen island, where technically they are allowed to be because we gave up years ago when it became clear that allowing them on the island meant they were less likely to then try to get onto the counters, except that they aren’t helpful when one is trying to roll out dough) made several batches of gingerbread while my brother-in-law cut templates out of cardboard and then cut out all the pieces. We also made chocolate crinkles and here is where I have to giggle because when I travel, I make sure to always bring yarn with me, while when she travels, apparently she likes to bring baking paraphernalia with her, like her favorite cookie scoop, and pastry bags and tips, and so on. I did manage to appall my sister (heh) by the fact that I only own one whisk (because most of the time I don’t ever need more than one at a time).

By the time Richard got home from work the house smelled delightfully of gingerbread and chocolate and yummy things. We ate lasagna for dinner stuffed with veggies, and ate cookies for dessert. Everyone camped out in the living room with the cats and various laptops and Kindles and so on and we chatted and laughed and oh, I wish they lived closer so we could do this more often. Sigh.

‘Tis the season for Holidailies.