On New Year’s Eve day, Stephanie dropped me off at DFW airport for my flight to Fairbanks via Seattle. She and the boys will be staying in Dallas for two more weeks, and I miss them already. Of all the times I have flown, this was my first time to ride in first class. We used miles to buy my ticket to Dallas, and both coach and first class were the same price. I had to think for a couple thousandths of a second to choose between first class or coach. The most obvious difference between the two is the amount of room you have. I could cross my legs in the seat, had plenty of elbow room, and could easily reach down to retrieve items from my backpack. Oh, then there was also the free drinks in real glass, the decent meal, and the warm salted nuts in a wide mouth red wine glass. Hmmm.

The flight would have been better had I not been battling both the bilial sledge and a blossoming head cold. Everyone in the house over Christmas was sick, and I thought I would escape it, but by the time I landed in Seattle, I could feel the first symptoms.

I have always enjoyed eating and the holidays were that joyous time of food everywhere. Add to that the fact that every event, celebration and get together centered around a big meal. I loved it, and my youthful gut could churn it all down like a garbage disposal and ask for more. A couple of Christmases ago however, after the Nth large meal, I went to bed and woke up after a couple of hours of dead sleep to the feeling of all of that liquefied goo trying to make its way back up and out again. Chalk it up to getting older. I told myself I wouldn’t indulge to that degree this season, but alas, it snuck up on me. The sandwich and salad I had for dinner, and then the cold medicine horse pills I took pushed me over the edge, and I could feel that bilial sledge welling up in me again.

As we made our “final descent” into the Fairbanks area, it was just a few minutes after midnight on New Year’s Eve, and we could see the fireworks being ignited all around the city. They looked like tiny little colorful waterspouts in the dark. It looked so very festive and it gave me a swell of love for humanity to think about all the individual parties and celebrations across the city all united in time.

Now I’m sitting up in bed in my dark hotel room. It’s 9:45AM and I am momentarily surprised to notice the almost complete darkness outside my hotel room window. Oh yeah, I’m back in Alaska in winter where it was 26 degrees below when we landed.