The Intrepid Travelers Return

Aviva and I returned from Charlottesville last night after a rather seamless eight-hour drive. The car was packed to the rafters and we even had to resort to strapping a container to the roof rack, which we affectionately called "The Snail." Fred and Aviva worked some magic on the thing, securing it with rope, tape, bungee cords, and paper clips. Though it looked a little piecemeal and, I must admit, I had visions of the thing flying open somewhere along the highway, spreading our belonging into the ditch or onto the windshield of a car behind us, it held fast. Shame on me for doubting their abilities! In fact, it took considerable effort to detach the thing the next morning. I won't take any of the credit for detaching it either; Aviva started and finished that process while I spent an hour talking to my mother on the telephone.

Here we are driving away from the house yesterday morning.

Obviously, Santa was way too good to us, which explains why the standard storage space in a mid-sized SUV wasn't sufficient to haul everything back to Rochester. Mind you, Fargo was occupying the entire back cargo space and Jezebel, Aviva's parakeet, was taking up quite a bit of room in the back seat. Car packed full of presents aside, the entire break was wonderful. Fred and Rita were as welcoming as ever, setting up a cozy little corner of the house for the three of us to occupy throughout our stay. As you can see from the picture, Fargo only needed the occasional reprimand to keep him in line.

Sit ubu, sit. Good dog.

On Christmas day, we started opening presents around noon and the process continued until dinner time. Given that there were only four of us, we all ended up with more than our fair share of goodies!

A lovely vase that will hold one or two lovely flowers.

The tree had already been decked by the time we arrived, although they saved the final decorating task for Aviva--the hanging of the Christmas pickle.

Even the Baga is dressed for the holidays.

Once again, Rita turned gift wrapping into an artform, constructing castles and over-sided books out of intricate bows, paper, and gift boxes. At times, we had to stop and admire the packages for several minutes before we could bring ourselves to rip them open!

Within the pages of this intriguing fairytale were two pairs of wrap-around pants, hand-made by Rita!

A few days after Christmas, we headed to Charleston, South Carolina for Renaissance Weekend, which turned out to be a very hectic but intellectually engaging event. I participated in three panels, one on "channel Markers" that considered television and American society, one "Critic's Corner" that considered how one's critical knowledge changes one's position as a spectator, and one that asked each panelist to speak about the best and worst of this year's films. Aviva participated in a panel about the future of books and movies in light of evolving technology and an "Art Attack" panel where artists, curators, board members, and academics discussed important issues in today's art world. We also attended a variety of interesting panels, "academies," and lectures. The weekend's highlights included Stephen Colbert interviewing Howard Dean and Linda Lader interviewing the Clintons. After getting up at the crack of dawn every day, shuffling quickly between four different hotels to attend various panels, making small talk and explained our lives to countless strangers over lunch and dinner, and doing just a bit of wandering in the streets of Charleston, it was good to get back to the tranquility of Charlottesville. Before returning to Rochester, Aviva decided to tackle something that's been on her to-do list for a few months--wisdom teeth extraction. The poor thing is still recovering, though the pain seems to be subsiding and she's now eating semi-solid food.

With classes starting on January 18th, it's now time to put the nose to the grindstone. I'll spend the remainder of the break making small changes to my syllabus and working on my next dissertation chapter.