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Lena and I made a mad dash to The Home Country in a rental van (cue James Earl Jones saying, "BIG sonuvabitch..."), to pick up boxes of mom's pictures and what of her furniture we claimed from her estate. It was fast and furious, and very much aided and expedited by Dad, who loaned us his Mercury SUV for general use while in town so we didn't have to truck all over the Big Wheel in our 14-foot Red-October-class moving van.

When we got in, there was one thing that puzzled me:

What do you think? I wasn't really sure at all upon first glance.

Well, maybe *where* we found it will help:

Still no thoughts? Weird mag-lev cup holding device? Emergency ejector seat rip handle? Quick-draw tracking device?

Nope. It all comes down to this-- Dad hates wearing his seatbelt. This is a device he made to click into the belt buckle so it doesn't squawk that his seatbelt isn't fastened.

Awesome!

Well, hell, this smacks of all the cardinal virtues of a programmer as outlined by Larry Wall, godfather of Perl: laziness, impatience, and hubris. If Dad had been born in a slightly later era, I bet he would have been a programmer.

Okay, maybe a sysadmin.

So we headed back to the Home Country for the post-Christmas. Things felt a little subdued this year, as my brothers weren't in town, and my sisters were there at different times, and I didn't really get the chance to leisurely go around and visit, as I've been wanting to of late. So it was low-key, but good.

There were various highlights during the trip:

My nephew got this ridiculously huge plastic gun that fires clips of nerf bullets. It kept jamming, and I kept dropping quotes and tech-sounding quotes about the AK-47, a la Clint Eastwood: "This is the Nerf Hi-Strike assault rifle, the preferred weapon of your enemy; and it makes a distinctive sound when fired at you."

At Undo's restaurant in the big wheel, I learned how to correctly pronounce gnocchi, and ate the first gnocchi in my life that did not feel like swallowing lumps of hardened spackle.

My niece told me that I was her favorite uncle. I was caught by surprise on that one, plus I got a little choked up. I'm such a sap.

I showed my mother facebook, and set her up with an account. O, God, what have I done?

We re-met with my friend Chuch and his lovely lady Argelia. Damn, but I miss the guy.

We had a game night at my uncle's house, which is always a fun event, usually a lot of laughing. The capstone of that evening came when I said something about my cousin/friend being able to recite most or all of the Jabberwocky... the two uncles present proceeded to recite the whole thing together, in unison. Caught by surprise again, but with those two jokers, I really should have expected that. I mean, what else would you expect a lawyer and an entrepreneur to have memorized?

Went back to the home country for a cousin's wedding this weekend. Very nice on all counts. Here is a random sampling of conversations, anecdotes, what-have-you.

Tourist comes to town, looking for some seafood, asks a cabbie: "Do you know where I can get scrod?"

Cabbie says, "Bub, I've heard that question asked lots of different ways, but that's the first time I've ever heard it in the pluperfect subjunctive."

Oh, God, please don't tell me that this Michigan team is going to make this Notre Dame team look good.

This isn't the exact variant we heard from my uncle, but it's basically the same:
"Do you herd sheep?", my Gramma sighed
My Grampa leaped in fright.
"'Your Grammer's wrong!", he loudly cried.
"'Have you heard sheep?' is right!"

Well, if Beanie had been healthy, we would've had those thirty-five points, and more, easy. [said by anonymous uncle in excellent imitation of a specific Ohio State fan]

Why couldn't I have a clown car at my wedding? [said by an anonymous family member as a tiny car disgorged an almost unbelievable amount of passengers]

So, who do you want to lose more, Notre Dame or Michigan?

Couldn't we just have the earth swallow up both teams?

Damn. I love beer. [said by anonymous aunt on her 3rd or 5th beer]

Hey, WVU doesn't play this week, do they? Sweet! We might move up!

Um... aluminum isn't a good conductor of electricity, is it? Oh, it is? Well, then thank God we're not sitting right beneath the highest aluminum tent poles I've ever seen with a massive lightning storm approaching. Hey, you want to trade seats? [said by an anonymous family member when staring at 20-25' aluminum pole supporting tent, as spectacular massive lightning storm approaches]

Went eastward to the Home Country for Christmas with the family. It was very nice, except that one of my brothers opted to remain in his Secure Compound In An Undisclosed City Somewhere On The Eastern Seaboard (SCIAUCSOTES for short), for undisclosed reasons. Well, undisclosed to everyone else. Or at least, everyone not in our family. I'm not going to un-undisclose them, though. Don't want to be exfamiliacated.