Honey I'm home!

Flying from Bangor Maine to Los Angeles never ceases to amaze me. I left my mother's kitchen at 12:30 local time yesterday afternoon. Karen drove and Mommy and Daddy also came along. The wind-drifting snow moved across the road like smoke, creating fantastic whirls. The whole world was shades of white, gray, and black, as austere as a Japanese ink painting or a Puritan church. After some issues with my luggage (what does a foot-warmer made of 4 pounds of flax seed look like in an x-ray? Something suspicious, apparently, since I got stopped both coming and going!), we took off for Boston. Lovely flight, lovely views of Lynn, Winthrop, and the islands of Boston Harbor and then that always-thrilling descent into Logan in which there is nothing but water visible out the window until moments before landing!

A quick turn-around and off to Salt Lake City (Boston, incidently, had no signs of ever having seen any snow this year. Completely bare ground.) I watched "The Queen" on the 5 hour flight (intriguing, but how exciting is a movie about a woman who is emotionally barren?) then landed in several inches of fresh snow in SLC (I would have worried, if I had known, but the snow didn't seem to cause any delay at all). And finally, a 2 hour flight to LA. The whole thing passes in a kind of blur, as if I am not really there. And then I'm in a van and suddenly back in my own house, but my mind is still back in Maine. For some time after I get home, I see things with different eyes, as if Mommy, Daddy, Karen, and the rest are mentally accompanying me.

It is comforting to be back with Sam, back in my own life. I felt like cooking for him, so I made bacon and French toast for breakfast and Buffalo chicken strips for lunch, with plans for Baked Potato Soup (and leftover chicken strips) for dinner and home-made mac and cheese tomorrow. It is very nice being well-cared for by my mother and sister, but I become a child when I'm there, and it feels nice to resume my life as a functioning adult where I know where things are and how to do things.

Oh, and did I mention that I finished the second mitten a few days back? The second one had the same issues as the first, but this time I was watching for them. (I tried to prevent myself from knitting on the inside instead of the outside, but it happened anyhow, so I had to purl. But I got the thumb completely right. As a result, you can see the learning curve between the left and right hand! But symmetry is over-rated. If I wanted bland and boring perfection, I would buy my mittens at Wal-Mart. The mittens will forever be known as my Maine mittens, since I found the pattern at the Pittsfield Library, bought the needles in Newport, and completed them in Hartland and Pittsfield. And then I christened them by wearing them to shovel snow! They were very warm and cozy and I love them to bits. In fact I love them so much, in their slightly off-center way, that I wore them this morning in Torrance driving to Borders and shopping i the grocery store. :-)

I am starting for the second time on a roll-brim hat for Karen. I had about 2 inches of it done last week, when the phone rang. I laid it down to talk to Kristen and the cat tore into it, unraveling several rows worth. I tried to salvage it, but getting 100 stitches back onto circular needles was mnore trouble than it was worth, so I let it rip. I came up with a slight variation in the color layout, so I don't mind trying again. It will match the Windy-City Scarf I gave her. This yarn (DK) is not really as thick and fluffy as I would like, but the scarf looked pretty good in the end, so a matching hat would be a nice gift for her I think.