And home again.

I got home a little while ago, but I had "clean up on aisle five" - one of my mousetraps got triggered, pretty, uh, early in break and, yeah, it wasn't good. (I can vouch for the plastic bear-trap-jaw kind; they seem pretty humane* and they are pretty accurate and they're cheap enough that if you don't feel like getting your hand that close to the dead mouse you can just sweep it into a garbage bag)


(*Well, as humane as killing any animal can be, but I'm not livetrapping mice and trying to drive them far enough away that they won't come back. If you live trap and release within a few hundred feet of your house, they'll just come back)

The trip was uneventful, and the car attendant I got (his name was Brian; he looked a little bit like the old comic actor Andy Devine, if you know who that was) was *very* good. Very on top of things, he even asked us early in the afternoon when we wanted our beds put down, and he had little notes up on our doors:

He noted down the time on the note so he would remember, and he also had our destination on there, so he would remember. But also? the notes were just NICE. It's one of those little things that maybe cost him a little time and effort, but it was just pleasant....and I suspect yes, I was not the only person who tipped him for his service. (This is regularly argued on the Amtrak discussion board; the point some people make that these are union employees with a good income, not some paid-below-minimum-wage waiter who has to count on tips to make up the balance. But I feel like, especially if someone goes over and above, it's nice to recognize it, and to recognize it with more than just a "thank you" - I thank the car attendants anyway, but on occasion, I have not tipped, if I had to wrangle my own bags and put my own bed down - and on occasion, I have had to do that)

I tipped him well; like I said, he was good. I hope I see him again on that route.

***

I finished reading "The Chilbury Ladies' Choir" on the train. This is a book set in WWII England. (Well, mostly during the "phoney war," though there was an incident of a bombing during the novel). It was....different....from what I expected. (If I were rating it, I'd probably say "three out of five stars.") There was less about the choir than I expected and more about some of the pettiness and....schemingness? of some of the women involved. And there are several fairly unlikeable characters, though one does redeem themself later in the book. But there are some pretty violent and horrific scenes (I suppose you have to expect that of a book set in that time period) and there's especially a case of one character horsewhipping another (not that anyone deserves that treatment, but this person....well, it was especially a case of "that person cannot fight back")

I will also say there were some things that felt like anachronisms - the biggest one that jumped out to me was that one woman referred to another as a "wimp" and while Popeye's friend Wimpy existed in the 1930s, I don't think the modern usage of  ''wimp" became common before the 1960s or 70s. (There were also a few nods to other novels - notably, the Narnia stories - that were a bit bald-faced and struck a little wrong).

I will say that one of the big things I wanted to happen (when I saw the two characters involved "thrown together") did happen, and that was kind of satisfying....but I will say it's not the best book I've ever read.

I guess I was expecting something a bit more like the movie "Paradise Road" (only, on home soil) and less like a soap opera...

***

One way it's nice to be home: writing blogposts on my laptop rather than on my little phone, where the tiny keyboard and forced autocorrect lead to some errors, and it was hard to go back and correct them later on.

***

My tree here is still up. I helped my mom take hers down on New Year's Day, and tomorrow will be taking down the decorations at church....Epiphany isn't officially until Monday so I think I will leave my decorations at home up until then, or at least I'll leave the tree up until Monday evening. I did unpack and put all my clothes and stuff away (visiting family means you can wash your clothes before you come home) and I'm kind of tired so I think I'll wait. (I might take down the wreath and the Nativity scene and put away the Christmas critters tomorrow, but leave the tree for one more day)

***

One thing I almost forgot to do: I had to take a "minimum required distribution" from the IRA my brother and I jointly inherited from our dad. (We each get half of what he would have taken out; I think that will continue for about 10 years until the thing is depleted, unless the market does amazingly well or amazingly poorly over that time). I dunno. I know I should put it in my "eventual new roof" fund but considering the small payout we got from a life-insurance wound up going 100% to a plumbing fix and a tree-branch fix, things I had not expected, I almost feel like "maybe I spend part of this on stuff I want for ME" and in fact....the quilt I took in to the local quilt shop late this summer (long story but: this was the shop where the two sisters who run it lost their dad very suddenly a couple weeks after I took the quilt in, so I expected it would take a good bit longer than originally planned for it to be completed, and I was totally okay with that. There was a message from them late in December that it was ready....so Monday I can pick it up)

***
I'm doing more thinking about 2020 (and further on, maybe) plans, but maybe I save that for another post.