Home, Sweet (but Cold) Home

The trip back to Van­cou­ver was unevent­ful, and I really like the ser­vice by Qan­tus. A smooth take-off and land­ing by a 747, in-seat enter­tain­ment (I saw Borat — first half going down, sec­ond half com­ing back), and even on a 1 hour and 50 minute flight, a hot meal. It’s a pity that this afford­able and com­fort­able flight is only offered dur­ing Australia’s sum­mer months, but I’ll cer­tainly take it again if the oppor­tu­nity arises. The arrival at Van­cou­ver air­port was smooth and had no prob­lems. The Immi­gra­tion offi­cer asked about my per­ma­nent res­i­dency ID card, but when he saw the date of my paper­work, he waved me through with no fur­ther questions.

I arrived home from sunny San Fran­cisco (and aver­age days of 15–18° C) to tem­per­a­tures well below freez­ing. We’ve finally turned on our gas fire as well as the elec­tric base­board heater in our bed­room. We don’t need much heat here (it’s a small place and only one set of win­dows), but it’s def­i­nitely needed this week. The small pond out back where our Koi swim has pretty much frozen over again, and I hope they sur­vive another bout of ice over their heads.

I hear from fam­ily and friends back East that their win­ter has con­tin­ued to be freak­ishly warm. I’ve always known that our tem­per­a­ture falls when the skies clear, and aside from a bit of snow and rain on Mon­day or Tues­day, it looks like we’ll be clear and cold for the rest of the week, with highs in the lower sin­gle digits.

Respond­ing to the cold weather, I’m mak­ing ‘com­fort food’ tonight: meat­loaf and mush­room sauce, along with cau­li­flower au gratin (really, puréed cau­li­flower mixed with a lit­tle but­ter, cream, salt and pep­per and topped with shred­ded Parme­san cheese and run under the broiler for a few minutes).

It’s fun to go to Mac­world, but it’s also nice to return home, even if it’s a lit­tle colder than I’d like (and oddly enough, Cam­bridge would have been warmer to return to this year).