Monday, January 10, 2022

Back to Reality

Deposited Natalie at RDU at a little after 5 this morning. It was a little surprising how much of a hubbub there was there, though I know lots of people take early flights and how the most seasoned business travelers use them to do out and back trips in one day and limit the number of nights they stay in hotel rooms. Which makes all the sense in the world to me by now, though my days of hard-core road warriordom are thankfully far enough in the past for me that a night in a hotel isn't the worst thing in the world.

But I digress. Natalie is gone after about three weeks in the nest with us. Not the highest octane or funnest of her life, for sure. We recrouched into the familiar postures and routines of the early pandemic (books, puzzles, baking, walks, etc) and while it worked fine, it surely has gotten old and I know she is psyched to be flying out to see Stuart.

The extra-maudlin in me pondered the prospect that this might be the last time she ever spends this much time under our roof, or at least until she has kids of her own (knock wood). Theoretically, it could be. She will graduate and then will do what is next. She and Stuart are thinking about living together, which sounds to me like an excellent plan. Not sure where, but it likely won't be at our house. Anyway, time will tell, it's all good. We got her on a plane without her getting Omicron, we're pretty sure, which was the short-term goal. Now we just have to get Graham through his college essay deadlines coming up this Friday. Then we can go hang out in redneck bars and luxuriate in Omicron to pump up our immunity.

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