Vacationing in Minneapolis!

• 12:33 PM CT: For those of you who missed it, there was a dramatic reading of "Green Eggs and Ham" just now. Also, feeding cheese to toddlers.
• 12:34 PM CT: End result of this prep work: we're going to the beach!
• 4:23 PM CT: Finishing up at the beach; @jhugart entertains a very tired two girls while we wait for Holly.
• 4:24 PM CT: Also, I have seen @crazybutable in shorts. Craziness!
• 10:33 PM CT: Back from dinner. Mostly packed. Early-ish flight tomorrow; the airlines are starting to sing a siren song of home.
• 11:35 PM CT: Around me, the house sleeps. I have been away for 13 days. Tomorrow I go home. I can't convey the comfort inherent in that statement.

I'm trying out this vacation thing in Minneapolis, Minnesota:

I'm resting a couple of days in Seattle before meandering on to Minneapolis. Here's what I've been up to:

• 10:45 PM PT: @jmcclure Miss you too, jeffie dear. Scritch Fang for me and tell them I'll be home Sunday and will be ready to administer Epic Pettings.
• 12:34 AM PT: On plane to Minneapolis. The chatty six-year-old across the aisle may not survive the trip. We'll see.
• 5:55 AM CT: Good morning, Minneapolis. Yes, my hair always sticks up like this in the morning, thanks for asking...
• 6:02 AM CT: http://ping.fm/p/q6I41 - The scrum to get off the plane and get coffee after a red-eye. Seat 33? You're gonna wait a while.
• 3:56 PM CT: After a long, luscious nap, I am finally awake in the Hugart household. *yawn* *stretch* Stupid red-eye flights.

It had to happen eventually, but it took a bottle of mead and a late night and finally signing off of work to realize it.  I am going. I am really going. I have this sleep, the one that's coming for me fast even as I type this entry, and one abbreviated one more, and that is it. A little over twenty-four hours and I am gone.

I am lying on the guest bed next to a surprisingly small pile of items that must go with me. Is this all I need of life for two weeks?  Really?

I've turned off all the lights except the lava lamp, whose glow is strangely soothing, and put away my books.  (Wizards of Earthsea is for the plane, so quit dipping into it already, Amy.) I need to wind down, and sleep, and yet suddenly it is all too real and all too soon and all too horribly far away.

Tickets are booked to Paris; tickets are booked to San Francisco.

We will be six in San Francisco, with tagalong extras depending on the day and the inclination of our local friends.  We have nebulous plans:  look for us in the cheap seats at the Giants-Astros game on July 4.  I'll be the one in the bleachers with the beer; that's all you need to find me in the crowd, right?  We'll do a night tour of Alcatraz and I'll relearn the San Francisco bus system and pictures, pictures, pictures!

A week in San Francisco.  We'll celebrate Suzan's birthday and tag along behind Asai in Chinatown.  Asai learned last night there's a temple there; amidst the touristy time and stomping all over the city, we'll probably take a few minutes for prayers. 

You would never have told them ahead of time that the prospect of taking kids to the zoo terrified you, and you were glad later that you did not because paradoxically, it was easy, and the clouds were even kind enough to finish their business early enough to allow you time to play outside.

A few hours later you recognize the familiarity of the geeky-auntie role. You have painted Zoë's fingernails bright blue, and in a move that will shock and amuse many of your local friends, photographic evidence of a toddler sitting in your lap (by choice!) has been gathered.

You have the distinct pleasure of letting someone else make you dinner. The kids have meltdowns and the conversation goes late; your toes have hooked themselves of their own accord onto the chair next to you, and you don't exactly remember when you decided you needed to be in the rocking chair, but it was right and necessary.

You reassure yourself that O'Hare will not screw you like last time, despite your sub-forty-minute connection. The land on the other side of your second flight is unknown to you, but you get on the plane anyway, recognizing that every airport, every flight, on this trip leaches a little of your individuality away.

No one is special in an airport. You walk down corridors that see hundreds of travelers per hour, all purposeful, all just as nameless and faceless as you. You are disconcerted to realize that within an hour, you will remember no faces and, in turn, will be just as forgotten. You wonder if you are the only person who becomes a little more transparent, a little less opaque, every time she goes through another airport.

Next to last city. Since a week ago today I have been in:

• Huntsville, Alabama
• Atlanta, Georgia
• Detroit, Michigan
• Minneapolis, Minnesota (technically Eden Prairie and St. Paul but who's counting?)
• Denver, Colorado
• Fort Collins, Colorado

I remain here until Saturday afternoon, when we'll switch back to Denver one last time. I fly home Sunday.

Everything intended has been done. 4x4 and Spitty are married. Class has been taught. Deep-dish pie accomplished with Dan and Stephanie. Shopping with jowilson done. Ethiopian food with all of the Minnesota folk. Drupal library meetup in Denver. There's more left to do, but all in due time.

I'm in Minnesota, taking a day off. Here's what I've been up to:

• 10:52 PM CT: OMG cheese curds. I am in squeaky, squeaky love. Weather's gorgeous. Hope it's as pretty here in daylight hours.
• 9:30 AM CT: "The other moose are over here." ... -snicker-
• 10:33 AM CT: Minneapolis is Nina Simone and kid photography and sore feet and laughter.
• 10:57 AM CT: @jmcclure Agreed with you. I love @gfmorris but I can't handle his many @ tweets to people I don't know. He knows this.

Oh, my dear little librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering.
- from The Music Man (thanks, Katie!)

Or ...

The cheese dances in the park after the seance.
(Thanks, Rachel. We'll come back to this one in a few months.)

Listmaking has begun in earnest. Panic started two days ago. There is much to do and a rapidly-lessening amount of time to do it in. A rough idea of my itinerary: