1.  Plane flight wasn’t too bad.  Had a few queasy moments at takeoff, but ginger ale and seasick wrist bands took care of the feeling.  Don’t think I developed any fatal blood clots despite being stuck in the center seat.  

2.  It’s SO DAMNED GOOD to see my mom and dad.  I’ve missed them terribly, and I can already tell that this visit is too short.  Fortunately, they’re starting to talk about coming to visit me, which would be loverly.  

3.  It’s so much fun watching the Boy interact with my folks.  The ex-husband was a dear sweet man, but not all that verbal.  Shy, introverted, even with his in-laws.  He tended to hole up with a magazine or a book and let the socializing go on around him.  Watching the boy talk sports with my dad and cooking “midwest style” with my mom and charming the pants off both of them just makes me fall in love with him all over again.  I adore this guy, and it’s so wonderful that my folks think he’s swell, too.

4.  I got to re-unite with my kitties that my parents took in after my divorce.  The cats are living in the best place in the world, and I know they’re happier than they were even with me – people home all day, cooking for them, making a lap for them 12 hours a day, etc. – so it’s not that I wish I could have them back, but it’s so much fun to see them again.  A true family reunion.  

5.  It’s lovely up here.  Every time I come back to Flagstaff, Arizona, I’m reminded that this was the first landscape I ever fell in love with.  In the summertime, everything is fragrant pine-scent and green, and flowered, and scores of birds at the bird feeder, and big poufy white thunderclouds on the mountain horizon.  Coming home is a good thing.  I’ve missed this place just as I’ve missed these people.