Home again, home again...

Playing on the iPod: Something from Celtic Solstice by our buddy Paul Horn
Meters swum today: Zilch. I got home a little before midnight and getting up at five was Just Right Out.

I'm back in Dallas. Not much has changed, except the pile in my in-box has mysteriously grown, and gas costs 5 more cents a gallon. Not that I'm complaining: We paid $4.47 in San Diego. Wow. The cats are all right, the weather is good (some blow and bluster earlier but no rain, darnit) and apart from being almost totally out of food, everything's fine. Tomorrow I'm back in the pool. It's "Swim for Distance Month" and I have 17 more practice sessions to make it to 25 miles. Ya know, if I showed up on time, it might even be possible...

Could somebody please explain to me why the most relaxing part of our vacation was the flight home? While waiting at the airport I browsed through Mindbender, removing -ly adverbs from page 400 to 500 (my God, will this mad crazy merry-go-round existence ever end?) Joan read Time Magazine, which was doing a special issue about Mark Twain (in a previous life, she either was him, or she knew him, we aren't sure which). Joan was in a wheelchair owing to her injured leg, so we got to pre-board, and on the other end there was a wheelchair porter waiting to help us with Joan and her luggage. The flight was only half full (American Airlines is so going under; you heard it here first), I didn't need a seat belt extender (a first in recent memory!) and I fell asleep a little after takeoff. That's my idea of a perfect flying experience. Only hot chocolate could possibly have improved matters. But then I'd have needed the seat belt extender.

Seriously, I love my family and all that, and my parents like totally rock for not freaking out six ways to Sunday that I married a woman, and they paid for almost everything, which, again, is totally cool, but being on vacation with them just stresses me the hell out. I dunno if it's that regressing-to-fourteen-and-surly thing that sometimes happens when I hang around a gang of relatives, or if it's just that I'm a lot more laid back than certain hyperthyroid others, but honestly, at the end of the weekend I felt like I'd been breaking rocks on the freeway. (You gotta admit that anyone who has a nice time flying commercial is either way stressed, or delusional, and I may be both.)

So, anyway, it's good to be home. And married. Did I mention married? Heavens, I'm somebody's wife.