home alas (at last?)

Sob. Not that I am a Fort Lauderdale fan, but this was probably one of the most dramatic differences in temperature and conditions of any of the four years so it was one of the hardest years to leave that behind. Yesterday morning we were in the 80+ degree ocean, bobbing around with the manta rays and the man-o-wars, and this morning we were out in the gray, picking up our muddy dogs in 50 degree weather.

At least the warmth is not far behind. The trees have buds and the forsythia is in bloom. Maybe some blue sky will peek through sometime this week.

As for the meet, it was a success in that everyone made it home in one piece, no MRSA attacks while down there although a couple of the spots have small red raised dots in them, but this may just be scar tissue, because they don't look infected. But swimming-wise, it was not one of the better meets for M. Not one of her individual swims yielded a best time, except for the 50 free, which she swam at time trials and it isn't one of her better events anyway.

She did have two nice splits in the relay, the first of which helped to place her and her relay team in a tie for tenth place, bringing them back to swim at finals on the last night. Unfortunately, they weren't able to hang on the that spot, and they finished last in finals, but that still put them on the board with two points (the only points scored by the girls on the team during the meet) and qualified them for YMCA All-American status. So at least the meet ended on an up note.

All of our flights were early, and we got home around 10 to find the house and cats in one piece, if a little smelly from bowls with caked wet food in the trash can. The dogs had to wait one more night, but they were thrilled to see us at 9am. Wilbur was fine, but Abby had eaten her towel (which I had not expected her to spare, so it was an old one) within half an hour of arrival - and he said that was a generous estimate. Her more egregious crime was against the proprietor: she dug up, in 45 minutes, three of the ten new sprinkler heads he had installed.

And now it's back to the real world, at least for a week. The week after, both kids are off from school. I'd like to take a day off and go into NY with them, but I doubt I'll be able to, so soon after having three whole days off in a row. Without pay, of course. Unless something happens causing me to become unemployed, either on my own terms or otherwise. I'm terrified to go back in. I have never been out this long in a row before while my boss has been in, and it's bad enough when he spends an afternoon there and I have to go in and clean up his mess the next morning. I am literally feeling queasy over the thought. (A feeling which is not helped by my panic over Brian's educational situation, which was exacerbated by three days during which he chose to watch Law and Order instead of doing the 2-3 hours of homework a day I had required of him ... I guess you can lead a horse to water, but that's about it.)