After a nice winter break, it's back to the Microsoft mothership come Monday. Today, the tree and decorations are getting packed up and crammed into storage, the Xmas candy is in the pantry, and gifts are being sorted and put away. The marathon of Christmas craft shows, light displays, freak Seattle snowstorms, endless gorging on decadent food, and reuniting with friends and family seen too infrequently has come to a finish.
One of the more surreal moments of the Christmas season was getting lost in Bellevue's tighty-whitey community of Medina on a dark and rainy night, en route to my grandmother's dinner at the stuffy Overlake Golf & Country Club (I kept an eye out for Judge Smails). I asked a lone, rainslicker-garbed fellow walking his dogs for directions, and was surprised to recognize former Washington Senator Slade "Skeletor" Gorton. He was kind enough to give directions, though my juveneille brain was scrambling for some kind of witty crack the whole time, so I didn't hear a helpful word he said.
