The  best laid schemes...well, maybe they weren't so well laid.  My brilliant idea was that instead of disturbing anyone after midnight when we arrived at Dulles, we would stay the night in an airport hotel, then move the next morning to Allen's sister's house in "nearby" Burke and borrow her car for a few days, and I'd fly to Utica to visit my parents and grandmother for the weekend before we leave for Italy on Monday.  I guess I'm zero for three: for a quarter of the price of the hotel and taxis, we could have rented a car for the weekend; I had to cancel my flight to Utica for fear of getting stuck up there in one of their legendary snowstorms; and we inconvenienced everybody beyond my wildest imagination!  How's that for starters?  On the plus side, we did get a chance to see some of our wonderful friends and relatives, and sorted out all our ridiculous beureaucratic details in DC, such as getting a "police clearance" to prove to the Italian authorities we're not mass murderers or other riffraff who shouldn't be allowed to live there.  Little do they know!  Now if we can just make it through to Monday without getting frostbite...