Not many pics today, as the early part of the day was spent in the domestic terminal at LAX, staring at a series of about 32 changing screens, desperately hoping to see my code "MCLE/I" appear (telling me that I had, indeed, secured a seat on my flight to Detroit). Then there was the flight itself, and an interminable wait for my bag to appear on the luggage carousel.
All of this panic and boredom - not helped by an understaffed terminal with no one to ask questions - was swept aside by the single snowflake that spattered against my wind as the plane landed in Detroit. By the time my bag had dared to show its straps, and the cab had arrived, there was a delightful dusting of snow everywhere. Arriving in Ann Arbor, at my penpal Olivia's house, the roads and footpaths were all white. Their first snowfall of the season, and it delivered me the White Christmas I'd come to see! It seemingly snowed for at least three days straight. Every view out every door and window was a northern-hemisphere Christmas card!
Day 2 photos:
Recreating the infamous first meeting of Ian and Olivia! — in Ann Arbor, MI.
We had not swapped notes about T-shirt themes, either! Serendipity!
Recreating the infamous first meeting of Ian and Olivia! — but this time outside... in the newly-fallen snow!
Ian and Olivia meeting in December 1983 (New Year's Eve, actually) - and on Christmas Eve, December 2012.
Olivia and I had "met" in the pages of the newsletter of ASTREX, the Star Trek Fan Club of New South Wales, and immediately bonded over penpal correspondence, Trek gossip, and articles about the Aussie TV soap opera, "Prisoner", which Olivia used to watch as both "Cell Block H" (in the USA) and "Caged Women" (via a Canadian channel whose signal strayed across the border into Michigan).
Archival pic: Ian (and his beard) encountering hamsters up close, for the first time, at Olivia's place in December 1991.
The delightful Dorothy Lenz (Olivia's mother-in-law) and Ian, 2012.
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