"It'll be fun!" they said.
One day, roughly 2 weeks out from Christmas, my wife announced that a "free" chalet in Beech Mountain, NC would be available to us for the days around New Year's, as the owners -- I'd have to draw you a flowchart of our relationship to them -- would be spending that time in Hawai'i. Make a note of that. Also, kindly note that the census numbers encompassed by the "us" abovementioned was in the "10-12" range. Further note that my beloved had announced , rather than inquired. Resigned to my fate, as befalls any wise husband whose prime marital directive is to preserve peace in the valley come what may, I nodded assent. (Resistance is futile, and comes with the added cost of having argued and still lost.) Furthermore, my main writing partner Karen lives in the general area and I owed her a massive (7 file boxes worth) load of cookbooks, etc. and I figured, quite reasonably, this would have the effect of a palliative salve on all the things