Going home

I'm on a plane from Boston to Seattle right now, trying to decompress from what might charitably be called a hectic week.

Lindsey and Amelia and I had a great time visiting my folks: Amelia finally got to meet her great-grandparents Maggie & Jerry, and her great aunt & uncle, and her 2nd cousin and all manner of other relatives. She took her first steps (with just a little help), and got to spend lots of time with her grandparents. Said grandparents of course, as always, amazed me with their generosity and kindness; my mom babysat for Amelia countless times so Lindsey & I could go out to dinner, or go run, or just have some time to ourselves. Plus she cooked for us, gave us gifts, and generally spoiled the hell out of us.

The only downside was that my parents' house is small, and full of people and animals, and consequently Lindsey & I ended up sleeping on the floor in the living room, subject to the seemingly-without-cause mewling of my parents' ancient cat and completely unpredictable behavior of their arguably retarded and perhaps senile English Setter. So I don't think I've got more than 5 hours' of sleep per night since Monday when we arrived on the red-eye.

Of course I was subject to some publicity which I would in retrospect much much much rather have completely avoided. And there was the good hectic-ness of visiting so many people in so little time (and still not getting a chance to spend as much time with anyone as we really wanted to). And I got to experience what it's like to commute two hours each way to work which turns a simple 8-hour work day into a massive 12-hour slog.

The result is that I am thoroughly exhausted and simultaneously wired and of course completely unable to sleep.

Lindsey & Amelia are in Memphis now, visiting Lindsey's family, and I miss them so much already. For the past three days I've only seen Amelia for 20 minutes or so a day and that was killing me; I can't imagine what it's going to be like to not see her for a couple weeks. She will be so different when I see her next, and I'm not sure in what ways. Smarter and cuter, of course, since those traits have been increasing steadily for over a year and I can't imagine they'll stop doing so.

Now for the next two weeks, until I fly to Memphis, I plan to live a more ascetic lifestyle: wake up, run, go to work, go to the gym and lift and steam and soak, go home, sleep, repeat. Please note 'blogging' is not part of that equation, unless it's maybe random notes about my daily runs. I want to be well-rested and happy and stress-free. I'm doing a trail half-marathon in about a week which I am very psyched for and I've got some other long training runs planned.

Good engineering problems to solve at work, a comfortable bed and a good night's sleep await me. I'm out-