I’ve returned to Chicago after a fantastic ,dull, interesting ,troubling, nice trip Beyond Buffalo. It was really great to see the family that was there and to spend time with My Mom and Dad just relaxing and spending time with them.

The trip to the Buffalo area was slower than expected, as I got caught in a Blizzard outside of Toledo. The snow fell, the interstate covered over and the traffic speeds slowed to a crawl. 40 mph was the fastest I went for close to 300 miles. What should have taken a little over 4 hours took 8 hours bringing the grand total time frame of my ass being attached to the lovely heated leather seats of my semi-luxury sport wagon to a whopping 13.5 hours. [The entire time chanting - "red state let me go" or "I was speeding to get through the red state before something horrible happened and I became hateful and ignorant, Officer"] Stella was a trooper though. We stopped a few times to let her do her thing and stretch her legs, frolicking in the snow in the side of the rest areas.

Arriving at 1:30am, I snuck into the basement door and hit the retired couch near the door and slept soundly until Stella started licking my face indicating she needed to go out.

The weekend was mostly uneventful. We spent “The Eve”® at my sister’s house with the kids running around and screaming at everything. My brother-in-law’s brother was there with his (shhhhhhhhhh) “homosexual”® partner, which was a breath of fresh air and the three of us spent most of the evening talking off to the side.

The Holiday day, we opened presents (I got fantastic suede slippers from the parents) and Mom made Lasagna for dinner (her specialty).

The only downside to the whole trip was the behavior of my older brothers. My immediately older brother is in the process of recovering from surgery where they removed his ass-cancer™. Its been over a month and he’s still feeling a great deal of pain from the operation and doesn’t seem to be improving. But then again, all he does is lay in his bed (conveniently placed in the living room in front of the TV) and moan and whine. After a day and a half, I was ready to smother him with a pillow in his sleep. so I got him out of the house and had a little heart-to-heart with him (yes, much like the one with Madonna in my dream) and he seemed to take notice and the remainder of the weekend he wasn’t making as much noise and whining as much.

The other brother, that’s too much for this post. I’m visiting him and his lovely wife this week, I’ll have tons to unload after that.

This morning, after loading the car, luggage, garage sales finds my Mom’s been collecting and Stella, I hugged Mom good bye and then, for the first time in my memory, I hugged my Dad. I was out the door and on the way back to civilization.