home again

My nose is a mess. 7 days in bone-dry NY-style cold, and 8 hours on an airplane, and my nasal passages are like jerky. Poor nose.

Happily, San Francisco is warm and wet with rain and everything I need is here: tea, coffee, steam room, and an unlimited supply of filtered tap water. It's nice to be home.

NY is cold. I complain when SF gets chilly, since so many places indoors are not heated. But it's been awhile since I've experienced the "how-many degress-below" cold of real winter, where the air that sneaks in on your pant legs and in the folds of your coat can chill you in an overheated room.

Christmas was nice. I and 20 members of my immediate family gathered in the Adirondack mountains, in a few rented cabins, and ate. The little kids were cute, and the older kids were a riot, playing with them. J especially, home for a few weeks from officer's training in Alabama, spent time with the three boys under 5. He's great with them.

Memorable times? My sister S carved a face on little E's banana, then dropped it. "Dirty, dirty nana," E said, in his British accent. He got so much attention for that that he repeated the scenario (without the face and dropping) with each morning's banana. It was pretty cute. Frankly, he's adorable, and the whole family hopes we get to keep him. (He's the son of D's new boyfriend.)

Oddly enough, I ended up getting a ride to the airport with my sister D's old boyfriend, who she announced her engagement to at last Christmas' gathering. Things change fast these days, what with Internet dating. (Although I have to note that I haven't had any luck whatsoever.) D's ex was on his way to Luxembourg -- he'd been transferred for work. So we had a good chat in the car, and I saw him off. Good guy. Just not quite right for my sis.

It's my first day back and I'm settling in. Odd how coming home can feel so familiar and so foreign at the same time. It's like you age while you're away, and then you have to catch up again to fit into your old life, feel normal in your old space. I walked into my apartment last night (sans luggage, I might add) and it was like a pretty litle space that someone set up just for me, full of things I would have chosen. "Oo," I thought last night when I walked into my closet for the first time. "Those are nice boots." Yes, and they're already mine.

Welcome home.