Help, help, I'm being oppressed!

Two young women dressed as Santa's elves rode by on bikes on Burke-Gilman this morning (in a steady downpour, it should be noted) and cried out a cheerful "Merry Christmas!" as they passed. Christmas obviously isn't going down without a fight.

Travel Meme

I'm usually not a big one for memes, but this one offers an opportunity for digest the events of the past year.

"List the towns or cities where you spent at least a night away from home during 2009. Mark with a star if you had multiple non-consecutive stays."

Vancouver, BC*
Ladysmith, BC*
Duncan, BC*
Victoria, BC (maybe *, I can't remember)
Port Renfrew, BC
Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Crooked River Ranch, OR*
Montreal
Toronto (an airport hotel, really)

I'd have to go back over my calendar to make sure this list is correct, but I think it's substantially correct. What it makes me think is that my traveling this year was largely centered around family. Sharee was in British Columbia to spend time with her dying mother, and I visited as something of an old family friend. I got to see a lot more of and learn more about Vancouver Island, which is a very beautiful and fascinating place. (One thing I regret is that when Sharee was staying with her aunt and uncle in the mountain home on the border of BC and Alberta and then with her brother in Edmonton, I didn't have time to make my first visit to Alberta.)

My many trips to Oregon and the big trip to the Dominican Republic were all about my own family, of course.

The one trip that didn't have anything to do with family, but everything to do with community, was the trip to Montreal for the World Science Fiction Convention. (The stay in Toronto was caused by a missed flight on the way back from Montreal.) That was really my big trip of the year, and it was a huge amount of fun to finally get a taste of Montreal and to take part once again in the great gathering of the science fiction tribes.

The list is also notable to me for something that's absent. In other years, I would almost invariably have also traveled somewhere to go to Corflu. This year we hosted it in Seattle, and I chaired my first convention. That was a very big deal, and it went well. Just the other night I was looking at the four issues of AmaZed and CorfluZed that I published with holyoutlaw and was reminded how much fun that was. Thanks, Luke! I suppose Corflu Zed might even qualify for this meme, because I spent the nights away from home at the convention hotel -- in the far away foreign land of the University District.