Home Again

We pulled into the driveway here in Phoenix just before eight-thirty this evening. It rained almost the entire way and at times it was hard to see anything more than the tail-lights of cars more than a couple car lengths in front of us.

I could write a thousand word post on the events of this day which began with a drive in the pouring rain from my sister-friend Jamie's apartment in Vancouver WA to my brother's house just across the Columbia river which took nearly forty minutes instead of the more typical ten.

I could go on for paragraphs about the French Toast breakfast my sister-in-law made for us. There was the coffee with eggnog. There was the antics of the litter of kittens my seventeen year old niece is socializing for a pet rescue agency, the piano playing of her eleven year old sister and the poems and of their fourteen year old brother which he read aloud to me.

I could go on for pages and pages about the two hour visit to Powell's Bookstore in Portland with my sister-in-law and nieces. A visit I've been dreaming of for over ten years. A bookstore so big you need a map to find your way and it is still difficult not to get lost. If there is any place in the world I wouldn't mind getting lost in it would be Powell's.

I could write chapters about the topics three grown women and their nearly grown niece talked about on a five hour road trip: old boy friends, ex-husband, parents and parenting, ancestors, food, recipes, cooking, restaurants, music, kittens, babies, rain, dumb drivers, old school friends and teachers from back when, gas prices...

I could but I'm not going to. I'm practically falling into the keyboard as it is. I've had less than seven hours of sleep in the last three days. Besides I've been away for seventeen days and Ed is working twelve hour days this week and was already asleep when I got home so I've barely greeted him and the only time I will get to spend with him before late evening tomorrow is now by joining him in slumber.