The Great Conjunction Comes!

So, the blog has gotten a little behind again. There a plethora of reasons for this. With so much neat stuff to talk about from our Flagstaff trip it’s taken a long time to but together those posts. Also, nothing we’ve done since has been half as cool as that trip, so it seems we shouldn’t even bother with more posts. We have both been experiencing a lot of laziness. We’ve been here long enough now that the crazy drive to go-go-go see stuff and do-do-do stuff that comes with a new place has died down. As a result we have spent several days just sitting around reading and that doesn’t make for very interesting blogging. Lastly, we bought ourselves a Wii for Christmas so there is suddenly a lot less “free” time. Matt especially finds himself wanting to play every available minute. Be that as it may, we’re going to try to get this blog caught up in the next few days. Hopfully before Maya’s Mom and sister arrive for a Christmas visit. It shouldn’t that hard. As we mentioned, we haven’t done that much…

Thanksgiving is Maya’s favorite holiday. She loves what it stands it for and the tradition of families eating a good meal together. This simple, beautiful focus is thrown into sharp relief by the sandwiching hyper-consumerism of the secular celebration of both Halloween and Christmas. Giving thanks, just a little, is something she holds onto even more tightly for it being so overlooked in popular culture. This year, for the first time ever, we are both miles and miles away from any family. Miles and miles. On top of that, Maya had to work. She had to work a twelve hour day on Thanksgiving and be reminded all day long about how she wasn’t with her family by all the family members coming to see her patients. Great for them that they get to be together, but she’s still working - and working hard!

She did have the next four days off so we had decided to go back to L.A. to see family there for the weekend. Matt picked Maya up from work with a hot supper in a box and Asher and all our clothes ready to go. We got on I-10 and headed west for the 300+ mile trip – starting at almost 8:00. It was a hard trip. Maya had worked Tuesday and Wednesday as well so she’s always pretty wasted at the end of day three and then she couldn’t go home and crash, she had to ride for five hours in a car. Terrible. It was the worst Thanksgiving ever.

Our L.A. trip was okay. We did see all the family, and that was the real point. Hi all! We stayed with Maya’s grandparents. Her one uncle’s family came over on Friday night for turkey feast leftovers so we saw them. Her other uncle’s family – we have a new baby cousin! – came over one night too. So that’s all the family. It’s always nice to hang out with family. Unfortunately, we didn’t plan to go out and do anything so we didn’t. We just spent a lot of time at the house. There’s nothing wrong with hanging out, but in retrospect we should have gone out and about a little more.

One shining moment for Matt – literally shining – was observing the Moon/Venus/Jupiter conjunction. They were closest together on 30 November. That night Matt went out with our camera set to “night shot” and took some fair pictures of the event. It was a cloudless night and the objects are all so bright that even the light pollution of Los Angeles could not drown them out. On the first we came back to Phoenix and on the second Matt went out and got another shot of the conjunction. Neat stuff. Spinning worlds in space and all.