Holiday break

With Christmas and New Year's falling on Fridays, and since our shop closes Wednesdays and Sundays anyway, these two weeks were bound to be strange and, since I punch a clock, less lucrative.

'Tis the season, of course, so it's all good.

Making this week another day shorter, the shop's owner encouraged my parts-counter colleague and me to trade "eves" -- he's taking off New Year's Eve and I (because I'm "a family man") get Christmas Eve to myself.

After 30 months without a regular job -- and arguably all the time in the world -- seven weeks into this one I have three straight days off. I'm not sure why that seems like such a windfall, but it does.

Light snow fell on the gritty little village throughout the day, adding holiday ambiance but little accumulation. Walking across the street midday to refill my coffee, even trudging outside after dark to fetch an oddball part, there was a feeling of peace.

Maybe it was the falling snow. Maybe it's the time of year. More likely, the sense came from within.

I think I'll carry that feeling through the next few days.