Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

It's finally here.  After many months of thinking it would never come, I am officially on vacation.  Not for a long weekend, but for three long weeks.  I'm sitting in the Jeddah airport now, checked in and waiting for boarding.  I am told my flight to Paris is not very full, and I've snagged a window seat.  I am glad, because I know my flight to Boston is pretty full, and I'm (for now) stuck in a middle seat.  Hopefully I can get a bit of sleep so I am not a zombie for my several hours in CDG.  I haven't been to CDG since I was 13, so this brings back memories.  That was actually the first time I ever flew, for an exchange program in France with several classmates and teachers.  I've been to Paris since then, but overland. 

Amazingly, I think I got everything done on my to-do list and was able to walk out of the office calmly this afternoon.  There are of course projects I didn't get to, but all the major items got taken care of.  So now, even as I check my Blackberry for those last few messages trickling in from Washington, I am working on mentally checking out.  I have 26 long hours to work on that before arriving home tomorrow. 

I haven't had a vacation this long in a few years, but I know it'll go quickly.  Trips up and down the East Coast for family weddings, reuniting with childhood friends I haven't seen in years, lots of sleeping in, spoiling my niece and nephew, and getting my fill of driving and all those little freedoms I miss here will surely make time fly.  But, regardless, it will be my own little Operation Sanity Retrieval.

Of course the down side to leaving is having to say goodbye to the cats.  Even though they'll be in good hands with my doting housekeeper, I hate leaving them.  I've already been working so much lately that they're starved for attention, and now they'll be on their own for entertainment except for a couple hours each day.  I gave poor Griffin a summer haircut this week, refusing to take him back to the groomer for fear of another lion cut, and he looks adorable.  It's a terrible haircut, but it's still kind of cute. 

Anyway, enough rambling.  Time to crack a good book on the Kindle and settle in for the hour before boarding.  More soon from the land of fast, functional internet!

1 comment:

Nomads By Nature said...

Have a blast being back home! Looking forward to hearing the details as you can!