Ran this morning, and then spent the rest of the day running. We did two miles around the track that surrounds the football and lacrosse field. Two girls outran me on every lap, and a slow-and-steady-wins-the-race kind looked better than me too. It was too cold, and my leg hurt and felt too inclined to come up with excuses.

It was about 24 degrees at the time.

After that we spent the afternoon packing. We were due to leave on Friday, but there’s a storm coming with even more cold and, most importantly, snow and ice. Neither planes nor I like to travel in snow and ice.

So we flew home this evening. The trip was great. Christmas was fine and lovely. It was a lot of travel and it was cold from time to time, but hour journey that began almost two weeks ago is over.

We stopped to see one more set of friends before catching a lull in the traffic on the way to Laguardia. We met a helpful Delta ticket agent and a pleasant TSA agent. We managed to get everything on the plane in short order. I read. A beautiful young Indian woman sat next to me and laughed a lot at whatever she was reading.

Hobbled off the plane, rode the terminal train, found our bags, caught the shuttle to the car. Packed the car, got rained on. Missed the interstate. Found the interstate. Found that the only thing still open for food was McDonald’s. Made it home in between rain clouds. Unloaded the car, got stamped on by the cat, unpacked …

That’s one way to start a new year.

How’s yours going so far?