An end to vacation and the beginning of a new year

Since you’re reading this, obviously we made it home. Thankfully we made it without any glitches, as smooth as can be expected in these teams of Fort Knox-level security and bare-bones travel.

As usual, dealing with the people in Austin’s airport is miles apart from dealing with people at Boston’s Logan. They were warm, friendly, and helpful. Logan workers are often helpful (but not always) and usually polite, but rarely are they warm and open.

We were able to switch our seats to a completely open row near the rear of the airplane, so I could jump across the aisle and Isabella could have a seat to herself. It’s amazing the difference between flying in coach when it’s full and flying when you have room to breath. It’s nearly like flying business class. And while JetBlue doesn’t offer a meal, I do appreciate the constant flow of complimentary beverages, especially since you can’t carry anything through security. And you can carry sandwiches through (for now), which are better than any economy-class airline meal anyway.

You can see Isabella in that photo up there, sitting in her seat and watching “Finding Nemo”, which I had ripped to the hard drive to save battery power. (Don’t worry, I do own the DVD.) Consider that photo an abberation, however, as on this flight Isabella was much more apt to want to get out of the seat and go into the aisle. She had an uncanny ability to fall down or drop her sippy cup or doll just as someone was coming by to go to the lavatory.

As for me, I watched a Travel Channel marathon of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations”, which it’s always entertaining to see someone consume what is to me looks disgusting (and based on his reaction probably is) and/or eat food that is so spicy as to make my eyes water, just watching him eat it.

My always helpful and ready-to-assist brother-in-law Pete picked us up at the airport, along with my nieces Kateri and Chiara, saving us $40 for a taxi. Thanks Pete!

And then home again, where I had to figure out how to turn on the new water heater the landlord had installed in our absence and turn up the heat and pull my car out of the garage and put it behind Melanie’s in the driveway and put the car seat back in her car and … the million things you do when you come home after being away for a bit more than a week. On tomorrow’s to-do list: Take down the Christmas tree and figure out whether the city disposal date has passed.

Of course, there always work tomorrow and dealing with the piles of paper and meeting requests and notes and emails that have inevitably gathered in my absence, no one obliging me by refusing to work while I’m gone. Such inconsideration. Still, it will be good to jump back in, especially since we’re going to be so busy the next few weeks.

I feel especially bad for my in-laws who will miss Isabella so much. And Isabella as she begins to realize they’re not here. She had grown so close to them in the past week that it was tough to take her away from them. The consolation is that we should see them again soon when Melanie has Sophia at the end of February. I have to say that they are so generous in bringing us down and treating us and showering Isabella with love and attention. As the first grandchild on Melanie’s side of the family, she’s spoiled, spoiled, but in the good way with love. And it gives us a little bit of break to have several sets of helping hands at the ready to feed her, distract her, take her outside to play, read her books, etc.

And so on to the next challenges: The birth of our new baby and then moving again later in the spring. There’s never a dull moment.