IrishOboe

It’s midnight, I have a scratchy throat and I’m sneezing.  I’ve just finished packing for my trip to Texas tomorrow and that probably means no bloging for a week.  I’ve not been doing anything too terrible exciting my few days at home but I received a few requests to continue writing when I returned to the states so here goes.

Thankfully there was nothing of significance to report on the trip home besides meeting up with some friends on the last leg of the trip.  I talked mommy and daddy’s ears off on the drive home but managed to get to sleep and wake up rested.  I’ve been sleeping a lot but in general am adjusting to the time change just fine.  We’ve been doing our individual work and enjoying exercise and food together.  My dad has been running at a certain park for nearly the whole time we’ve been in Florida and Mom and I join him sometimes.  I don’t have a bike here so while they rode to the park I decided to run – barefoot of course.  The 1 ¾ miles there was on sidewalk and bike path so it was no trouble.  The running course at the park is crushed shell and is a little more challenging on bare feet.  I could walk relatively easily and even ran a few slow paces.  I ran home in a wonderful Florida weather phenomenon: rain and sun at the same time.  My feet made it through intact and just fine – it was about five miles!  The Maggie P. is going to be a breeze this year!

Mom made a welcome home dinner of hamburgers, potato salad (with Japanese mayonnaise) and asparagus.  I unpacked everything and have only just now begun to make a mess of my room.

Here are the welcome home flowers from Mom’s garden!

I had broken my glasses in France and decided to wait to get new ones for when I returned to the states.  I don’t like shopping, and it’s even worse when it’s for something that you will wear everyday and I liked what I had before just find thank you very much.  The eye appointment was fine, though I’m sure it would have been more interesting in German.  I asked about contacts for the hey of it and ended up going for the exam since I figured it might be nice to have some dailies I can use for special occasions.  Contacts sure have changed in 12 years.  I couldn’t feel them at all once I’d put them in.  I had them once a long time ago but found myself to lazy to bother with them.  I almost went for some crazy green frames but decided against it.  Here’s my new look.  I’m not sure what I think of it yet, but I’m sure I’ll be too lazy to bother going back to change them.

Yesterday we went to a Japanese place with friends and I had cold soba noodles.  Yum.  I was so excited to ask for water and get a large glass for free that was refilled and refilled.  Lovely!  Tonight we went to the Outback Steakhouse and had lovely stake and fried shrimp.  I put lots of ketchup on my fries.

Here’s an attempt to show you rain and sun from the Outback.  Look at all that parking space!

That’s all the news from Florida.  My life is not so full of adventure as I deal with a mountain of papers and emails and sprinkle in walks and talks with my dear folks and attempts to remember how to play piano.  It’s good to be home and I haven’t been home long enough to miss Switzerland terribly.  I don’t think it was that way with Japan, but I’m sure that’s because I didn’t know when I’d be going back.  I’d hopped to write about my last week in Switzerland before leaving for the wedding, but given that it’s 12:30am and I leave in the morning, I don’t think that will happen.  I guess the backlog from Switzerland will help make the blog a bit more interesting during the slow parts of the summer.  Take care!