Christmas in Virginia

I dragged myself out of bed at 4 in the morning on 12/23, so I could be on the first LAX Flyaway bus to leave from Hollywood.

This was no fun, but I've learned to be on the first flight out on holidays. Plus, the shuttle driver taught me something, so I'm glad to have been on this bus.

We headed straight to baggage claim, not to Departures. In doing so, we avoided that hour-long crawl around the LAX loop, which had driven me kind of batty at Thanksgiving.

Pro tip: Don't screw around with Departures at LAX on holidays.

The flight was straightforward enough, and I was at Dulles soon enough, where my mother picked me up. We spent a few days around Front Royal, but the highlight has to be when my mother's husband released a mouse from a live trap, and a second later, a feral cat had the mouse in its mouth.

Happy Christmas, kitty cat!