A Nearly White Christmas

I arrived back in L.A. close to midnight, with one foot still on Christmas Eve time and one foot gingerly touching the early morning hours of Christmas Day. After I stumbled inside my place, I crashed and slept (uninterrupted) for an amazing 12 hours! I didn't wake up to Christmas again until just about 1:00 p.m. Pacific time...so unlike me. (It was a torturous and exhausting trip back, which I'll detail later.)

With nine full days of winter weather in my hometown of Omaha, Nebraska and temps in the 20s (F), I believe I got a hefty helping of mitten-worthy weather and perfectly-powdery snowball-making snow. I even got my photo taken with Santa...sure I'm an adult... but why the hell not? I was in the local Mangelson's craft store and Santa looked bored. ( I apologize to my friend, Angela, for coercing her into joining me for the Santa photo-op.)

It wouldn't be the last time for a photo-op. I admit, I went full-out, camera-happy in the town I used to call home. It's amazing how after even the briefest time away, all that was old is new again...the ordinary becomes extraordinary...

A look down a snow-covered walking trail in South Omaha suddenly becomes irresistibly alluring, despite the cold...

More to come...Happy Holidays To Everyone!!!

Panoramic Photo by Kendra Liedle
*Southern section of Omaha's Keystone Trail along Harrison Street ~ just a short walk from the neighborhood where I grew up.
Copyright © 2007 Kendra Liedle

"You picked the wrong time to come to Omaha," my brother says...

One way in which you can manipulate time and space is by re-visiting the place in which you grew up.

In a way, it's like entering another dimension. For me, that place is Omaha.

Though I spent the majority of my life there, it feels like a world away. Warm in a familiar, deja vu way, but cold in a way that whispers in your ear that you don't really fit--not so much--anymore.

Tomorrow, I'll fly there. I'll pack up as little as humanly possible, yet enough to get by, and hope to hell that there are lots and lots of heavy winter coats and sweaters and mittens to get me through. My own brother says, "You picked the wrong time to come to Omaha," as though I needed such positive encouragement.

After six years of L.A. winters, I'm not looking forward to freezing, nor am I really prepared. My Omaha treks usually occur in September~ for a reason. The current Omaha weather forecast alone is enough to make me cry, and the idea of existing in that climate for several days is enough to make me wear the ugliest, embroidered, hand-me-down, thrift shop Christmas sweater there is. (I don't care what I look like; I just want to be warm.)

And that's the beauty of it. When you go back to your hometown, nobody really cares what you look like--they're just glad to see you. And that warmth and familiarity will melt just about anything, except for maybe my holiday spirit.

Home may be where the heartland is... but it's certainly not where the sun is. This is what I'm flying into. Yup, the holidays will make you do crazy things.

OMAHA, NEBRASKA WEATHER FORECAST (12/15/07 and onward...)

ACCUWEATHER SIX-DAY FORECAST

	Sat.	Sun.	Mon.	Tue.	Wed.	Thu.
HI	24° F	32° F	34° F	38° F	38° F	36° F
LO	9° F	15° F	20° F	21° F	20° F	21° F

Photo credit: "Lightcicles" by Jim (the CG)/flickr
Copyright © 2007 Kendra Liedle