One of the many fun boxes waiting for me to return from Alaska contained my new correspondence cards from Crane’s.  I love formal script fonts and heavy card stock.  I made a radical departure for me, really unorthodox and crazy — and used GREEN ink.  Getting wild and dangerous now.  The inside of the envelope is flecked with little bits of green grass that look like dill or herbs and feel all springtime.

Went for my usual walk to the small reservoir a couple of miles up the dirt road past our house this morning with one of our golden retrievers, Kenai.  There really isn’t as much oxygen here as there is at sea level.  Whew.  Puff, puff, puff as I walked slowly up the hill to the reservoir.  I threw a stick into the water for Kenai, who loves to swim.  We’ve used the same stick for several years.  Each time I wedge it back into the exposed roots of a gnarled pine tree and it manages to stay there.  It’s becoming a family heirloom.  I love doing the same walk over and over.  I notice something new every single time, either because my gaze falls on it for the first time, or because the plants are changing and the creek is changing and everything is always changing.  This morning a blue heron flew along the creek as we approached, long and sleek and silent.  Walking back up the quite steep driveway to the house, which is located at 6,250 feet above sea level, I was really looking for some more oxygen, as Kenai ran mad circles through the meadow, nose down, happy.

Red-eye flights are hard on the system.  We left Alaska last night around midnight and landed here in Denver at 6:30 this morning, giving me about 4 hours of very light sleep.  I managed to stay awake until around 11, catching up on email and admiring the voluptuous September fashion magazines, and then just completely crashed.  Put on my pajamas and went to sleep in the guest bedroom until about 3, when Brad finally succumbed and came to sleep, too.  Now we’re awake, but not very energetic.  Brad’s theory is that he likes red-eyes because he doesn’t want to "lose" a day in airports/airplanes.  I understand what he’s saying, but I just lost a day to that strange altered state called exhaustion.  Definitely don’t know how parents of newborns survive.  I could see my driving skills decline remarkably with fatigue after just one night of this nonsense.  As we drove through the park this morning on our way home I noticed that I was driving about 10 m.p.h., which isn’t even over the speed limit.  Definitely not my usual way..

It is hot here, and dry, and a little bit brown; but the sunshine is wonderful and the endlessly blue sky is a relief after a lot of clouds in Homer.  Our house and landscaping are beautiful, the dogs are big and hairy and happy, the piles of mail and magazines beckon alluringly.

It’s good to be home.

I was delighted to be back in the land of television, not having seen any for the past two months; until I somehow found myself watching Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.  Yep, that’s what happens when I have access to the demon box.  We did watch an interesting movie, Swimming Pool.  After Swimming Pool ended Brad went downstairs to his office and I stayed on my couch, inert and with barely any brain wave activity.  T.V. is not a good thing for me.  I did manage to pull myself away after about 20 minutes, and I think my brain is firing again.  A near escape..

I just said to Brad, "You’re my Tad Hamilton," and he said, "You’re so sweet."  I said, "You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?" and he said, "No idea."  Not very in touch with pop culture.  I’m going to try to reduce my own knowledge of pop culture.  No more t.v. for this week.  I’ll watch some of the US Open tennis coverage because I really love tennis; but none of this plopping on the couch to see if anything interesting is on.  ‘Cause it’s just not.  I’m going to keep reading, making my way through the Read Me shelves here at home.

Brad and I are procrastinating doing the packing and preparing the summer house for winter before we head home to Boulder tomorrow.  There’s not really that much to do, especially since we leave most of our clothes and books here — but I’m unable to leave the various and sundry papers (New Yorker essays, fashion magazine layouts, advertisements, personal correspondence) that I collect about me wherever I go in a kind of nest.  I think that makes me a pack rat.  I bought nice new boxes from the post office and will fill them tonight and ship them tomorrow. 

I am ready to go home.  Here’s part of the reason: Boulder weather and Homer weather

And the other parts are my dogs and friends and family and house and community and life..

Listening to the band Equation performing the song Communion, which is the first item in the playlist I created this afternoon for my brand new iPod Shuffle.  This is a complete fantasy toy, which plays only songs I really love.  I’ve mostly loaded rowdy rock-n-roll since I plan to wear this while exercising and good tunage makes the miles pass more quickly.  It’s great for those Soundgarden/Creed/Staind/Fuel-type CD’s where I only love a couple of songs on the whole CD.  I’m curious to see what the battery life is, and whether the metal earbud things bother my ears (more than the loud volume setting??!).  Love Apple, love my iPod, thinking I’m going to love my Shuffle.  After the week I’ve had, it’s great to be rockin’ out..

This past Monday my sister’s fiance had an emergency surgery for adult intussusception, which was quite scary and bad.  My very best friend in the world (besides Brad) found out late last week that she has cervical cancer, which is quite scary and bad.  And then today, following a successful surgery and recovering nicely, my sister’s fiance was diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma, which is quite scary and bad.  We’re mostly waiting to find out next steps and gathering information and scheduling series of tests — but needless to say it has been a really tough day today. 

I just had my first ever bowl of Cocoa Puffs cereal.  Yum.  I’m not sure why I’ve never had this delicious chocolate sugar bomb stuff before, but it’s delicious.  Brad threw a box into the grocery cart while we were frolicking in Safeway, and has introduced me to an entirely new world.  I’m bouncing around and jiggling my legs and feeling quite frisky.  Kids should eat this sugar stuff every day.  Wheeeee!

I’m somewhat surprised that Brad’s Toy of the Month wasn’t our magical new alarm clock, which instead of blasting a borderline-heart-attack-inducing-air-raid sound, plays gentle sounds of birds singing and a background of wind in the trees.  It’s so nice to wake up slowly and easily and keep the calm resting heart rate a little while longer.  For city mice, it has the option to play street sounds for those who get disoriented waking up without feeling like they’re in a megalopolis.  I’ll take the birdies..

Brad and I went to the grocery store together tonight, and I said we needed more of those plastic containers designed for storing leftovers in the refrigerator.  He asked if I was planning on cleaning out the science experiment that last weekend’s chili has become.  I said, "Oh, I thought those were single use containers only.  You put the food in, leave it in the fridge for a long time, and then throw the whole thing away without daring to open the lid, right?"  We had a good laugh.  And bought some more plastic containers with airtight snap on lids.

It reminded me of 8th grade Gifted and Talented where I first really fell in love with science.  I grew my own bacteria cultures on agar plates and stained them and looked at their wonders under the microscope.  The last really fun science I did was at Wellesley, doing gel electrophoresis runs and breeding Drosophila melanogaster flies. 

I suppose little flies are spontaneously generating in the chili which is still in the fridge.