Still Here; California Tales Coming Soon

September continues to be a weird month for me: at least, the first half.

The trip to visit my brother went great (much more on that to come, obviously), but it was tiring (mostly in the ankle department), and then our (already a red-eye) return flight Thursday night was about 90 minutes late, and the whole thing was just so exhausting that it took longer than I thought it would to recover (I was expecting all day Friday, but I thought Saturday would be better than it was). On top of that, all the hurricane-related news out of Florida has been a lot to deal with; we were, understandably, immersing ourselves in the news, to the point that it was startling to look out the window here and see sun and no crisis.

As you may recall, my mother had been scheduled to leave here last Saturday, so of course that didn't happen; her flight was cancelled while we were still in California. I rebooked her, tentatively, for this Friday, and as far as we know now, that is still on (they had flights go down today, so I am optimistic). Some of the people in her building have made it there, and are reporting mostly very small damage, considering. (I mean, really: her building is identifiable in the storm line when you zoom all the way in on this NOAA map.) And the power went back on sometime on Wednesday, which is great news. She will lose everything in the fridge and freezer, I'm sure, and the machine itself, which she was already planning to replace (it started leaking, just a little, earlier this year), may be toast. But if that's the worst of it, we will not complain.

And I don't count it as complaining when I say that it has been rather odd to have my mother here for so long. I have lived alone for many years, and I'm used to it. She's usually here for a day or two at a time, and a week of even the most considerate house guest (which she is--and I'm not just saying that because she reads the blog) is just a strange thing for me. Though I am home from the vacation, and back to work, things have not returned to full normal yet.

Though the part of "not fully normal" that means I don't have any laundry to do for a while is nice, I must say...