The Goodness of Being Back

We arrived in Seattle late Friday evening after a grueling 17 or so hours of travel, hurry-up-and-wait, tell the nice Customs Person what you have, go through security, get all your bags back at another airport and recheck them, smile at the nice Customs Person, go through security, wait in line for the nice Passport Person, do it all again at a different place, and rush for your gate and flight. In Germany at one point we were told we were ready to board, went through the gate, down two steep flights of stairs carrying carry-ons (carrys-on?), outside to a bus, SRO for 3 miles to the plane, and out on the tarmac to wait with no shelter for 10 minutes in freezing rain and wind until they got the plane's dadratted door open. Then a steep flight of stairs up into the plane carrying bags. I'm so glad you rarely have to go outside and climb up to the plane in the U.S. anymore.

Ahhhh, the first cup of my favorite Assam tea. The autonomy of being able to drive yourself around when needed. The catching up on the mail. The heaven of being in your own bed. The choice of familiar comforting foods. It's all good! Then there's the freedom to get your own gas, make your own bed, cook your own food, wash your own clothes, and do your own chores. Not quite as exciting, but worth the price of giving up strangers knocking on your "bedroom" door at all hours. My efforts at food will not be nearly as impressive as having ten chutneys to choose from.

Or 15 ore more main courses. But, it will have to do.

It takes quite a while to warm up a stone cold house back to livable levels - slightly less time to turn the water back on and have the water heater generate some hot water. Fortunately, the electric kettle can heat water for the hot water bottle and warmth can be had. You know you've been sick when you normally live from hot flash to hot flash and suddenly you can't get warm for anything. But wait! Where is the Greeter Dog? No Greeter Dog! We have to call the kennel to get her out of hock before bringing her home.

Looking around our neighborhood in Seattle - it's so much cleaner than India - but kind of shaggy compared to Germany. Frankfurt was neat as a pin. Trees were trimmed, plants were pared down, no litter to be seen - not that we went everywhere around the city. They don't speak Horn at all in Frankfurt. I kind of miss Horn - even though I am not very tolerant of noise pollution. You always know where you are with Horn. Mr. Chirpcautious sends me the occasional link to news stories about people being shot in US cities for speaking Horn. It's a shame that such a commonsense language should be so misunderstood. In India, people are not leaning on their horn in an obnoxious manner but going through the subtle differences of toots and honks that signal positioning. Most of the larger trucks all have a sign on the back saying "Sound Horn" so they know you want by even if they can't see you. And size matters. The biggest always has the right of way.

Mr. Chipsnappy was in Amsterdam last April and took some fun shots of a local park with reptile sculptures. We are quite fond of reptiles.

Every so often they rearrange where the sculptures go to have fun. They must be amazingly heavy or bolted down so that no one makes off with them.

Frankfurt may be squeaky clean but they have a definite sense of humor. This is an entrance to the underground subway near the Museum of Natural History.

Now that I have stash access I can't wait to get back into some projects. Also to go to Feral Knitters!!!