Live and sleep-deprived from Colorado, I present … us. Click the photo for a larger version.

Pandora is the little uber-plushy penguin on your left. Phoebe is the larger penguin with the knitted hat and scarf that we liberated from a thrift store earlier this week.

(Peter, the original Disco Penguin, is at home, guarding the cats.)

I wondered where I'd be. I got the answer tonight; an answer that was nearly four years in coming. As usual, the answer wasn't what I expected.

It was less.

It was more.

It became real to me as I watched the power lines swoop from pole to pole. No amount of packing or planning had managed to do so; the days after PHE had flown by in a fever haze that made the date of the trip slip up on me sooner than I could have possibly expected.

Let's see if we can't knock out the two most important topics at once here. No point in beating around the bush, really:

1) I am, at last, on vacation.
2) I'm not pregnant.

I am scheduled to catch a flight out of Atlanta tomorrow … uh, okay, in about fifteen hours. (Perhaps I should go sleep.) I'm winging out West for close to a week of enforced peace, quiet, cooking, and shopping. I'll have my cell phone on me, but I'll likely not be allowed near any of the computers in the house where I'm staying.

You want me to get back to #2, don't you?

Hush. I'll get there.

"Stretch your hands out, spread your feet apart, and look straight ahead."

It was a formality, really. Sure, wand me down. I wasn't carrying anything metal; I know better than to do that in the age of burning planes and buildings. (I only taunt fate in ways that don't matter.) The only metal on my body was the clasp holding my jeans together.I don't like taking my wedding and engagement bands off, but they were in the smallest compartment of my backpack, nestled in with my spare change in the hopes of making them harder to find by anyone who might choose to rifle through my pack. In the dance to prepare for the airport security check, they are the last things to come off, after the watch and the shoes, and the first to be put back on.

The fortunate part about not knowing what lies ahead of you is that sometimes, not knowing makes it possible to muddle through a difficult situation. Sometimes foreknowledge only makes what is coming more difficult to bear.