In fact, one might say it’s decidedly Christmassy.

And, shouldn’t it be decorated to more celebrate the season?

But what, exactly, is considered appropriate holiday car decoration?

Ribbons?

Bows?

Reindeer?

In a non-gaudy fashion?

To the Research-mobile!

But certainly too much wetness to inspire me to get outside and run the few errands I had planned for the last day of this 3 day weekend. Who wants to go shopping in the pouring rain? Even if it’ll help the economy.

(Would it be cynical to say that I suspect if a Republican gets elected in 2012 that the name of the holiday (Labor Day) will change to something to celebrate our corporate overlords? And why don’t those union hating types (libertarians/conservatives) work on Labor Day, the holiday brought to us by the dreaded socialist leaning unions?)

(Assuming you’re in a certain country on the North American continent, of course.)

Without too many details:

1. Drove to my mother’s house – 950 miles
2. Picked up the T from college – 800+ miles
3. Took the T back and then drove home – 1,300 miles

And over $300 on gas.

Which doesn’t actually add up to the final amount ( so there’s probably a math/data entry error of some sort ( I use an app on my iPhone to keep track of such things. )) but it’s the thought that counts.

To say I was tired after all that driving would be an understatement especially since:
1. It rained all the way to GET the T from school. Often heavily, at night.
2. The trip to take T back… Was on snow covered, often icy roads.
3. The last day of travel was on a highway (Interstate) that always has bumper to bumper traffic for its entire length in two of the states I drive it on. For 400 mind numbing miles.

My, normally red, car was almost grey by the time I got home. Took it to the car wash after work tonight. And it started to rain just as I started to pull up to the car wash. After I’d already paid. Not that the rain would have gotten it that clean.

The day Italian Americans celebrate that great explorer Columbus who landed on an island in the Caribbean in 1492 (several centuries after the Vikings stumbled on another part of it) and claimed it for a Spanish king.

And thus beginning the European land grab in the Americas. For everyone EXCEPT the Italians. They had to wait another 400+ years before they could catch a boat to America.

Of course, they had the last laugh. Nobody remembers the Spanish king except historians and Columbus? More likely to get burned in effigy outside the Italian enclaves in the big cities in the US than be praised for his ability to navigate.

But everyone loves pizza, American style. And spaghetti is a lower middle class/ blue collar staple.

(Not that I’m Italian or anything. So I don’t really celebrate this holiday anyway. But I did have a grandfather who came over from Sicily between world wars, if that counts.