Well, I’m kind of a “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” kind of guy. It’s hard for me to admit limitations. But I just finished a round of phone calls to my children and my Mother-in-Law (age 87, but acts like 57) cancelling tonight’s planned holiday family event.
We’ve had a tradition that some time during the holidays we all get together and head to downtown Minneapolis to go through the display formerly known as the Dayton’s display, now the Macy’s display. Upstairs in the old Dayton’s department store building, since time immemorial going back to at least the 1960s, there has been a wonderful, entertaining and sometimes inspiring display. This year the theme apparently is the Nutcracker.
Earlier in the day during the first round of phone conversations the consensus seemed to be: screw the weather, let’s go anyway. Since then the snow has gotten worse. Then my son reported that his car was covered with snow with ice underneath the snow. When he tried to clear it, he broke off a windshield wiper. After that I found out that one of my daughters is at her boyfriend’s place – which is in Eagan, further away from my place here in Minnetonka than I had figured.
So on with public TV’s version of the weather channel – which at my place is Channel 13. Quite a graphic depiction of the weather radar showed the weather pattern doing a circular thing where there was no sign of it passing by. Looks more like it intends to stick around quite a while.
The storm should be over by Christmas Day. At that time we’ll discuss maybe trying to go to Macy’s another day before the display ends; apparently it runs until New years‘ Eve. I’m disappointed, however, over not being the conquering hero who figured out how to do the event in the face of the nasty adverse conditions. In my business life I have often been that hero, pulling miracle rabbits out of my hat or out of various other places. But upon having given up on the idea of going out in this storm, I am feeling relief.
There’s a whole body of literature on the subject of how if one feels relief after making a decision, that’s a good sign that it was the right decision.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all. If you have taken the time to read all this, let me suggest that you turn off the computer now and get face to face with either a family member or a friend. If you can’t get face to face, at least try making use of that quaint and ancient device – the telephone.
