Hello! I’ve been away. Did anyone notice? What have I been away doing? Well, first, Thursday last week was Bookman’s birthday. He turned forty-eleven, something worth celebrating, eh? So we did. We went out to breakfast at our favorite breakfast place and I baked him a cake. Per Bookman’s request, the cake was chocolate chocolate chip with peanut butter cream frosting. I am not the cook of the house but that does not mean I don’t know how to cook, and I made a freaking awesome cake if I do say so myself. We had a meandering kind of quiet day with a little of this and a little of that. Some of that included packing because Friday morning we flew to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Bookman’s brother lives there and his niece got married on Saturday. We were very happy we could make it for the wedding. Bookman and I don’t often get to travel anywhere together, our slow times at work don’t exactly coincide and we both work places with a small staff which requires a whole other level of scheduling consideration. We knew about the wedding though since last winter and were able to make sure everything coordinated.

A friend of ours stopped by and took care of Waldo and Dickens. We travel so little, and, as I said, rarely together, that we had never left the cats alone like this before and they are 8-years-old! They survived just fine though. They were a bit mad at us when we got home last night, did the “I’m going to sniff you but you are not allowed to touch me” bit. Waldo is also an expert at making big sad eyes so he mooned around the house trying to look as wounded as possible to elicit sympathy and then not let us touch him. Ah, the cats, they know how to make their people feel guilty. They soon got over being mad though, their desire for cuddles outweighing their resentment. When I woke up this morning I had Waldo snuggled up and purring on one side of me and Dickens snuggled up and purring on the other. Today they have been sticking to me like glue. Bookman and I left for an hour to go grocery shopping and upon our return they tried to play the “you’re causing us trauma” card but they dropped it pretty fast when they realized we weren’t buying it.

It was a good trip. A Beautiful wedding that even had vegan food! And it was great to catch up with Bookman’s family, many of whom I haven’t seen in a very long time. The flight to and from wasn’t completely terrible. The only snag was on our return yesterday. I opt for the pat down instead of going through those full-body x-ray machines. The TSA agent got a false-positive for explosives on her gloves after the pat down. So then she took everything out of my carry-on bag that had just gone through being x-rayed and had passed and tested it all for evidence of explosives. In the bag was a sealed, just bought container of hummus and some pita bread that was going to be my and Bookman’s lunch. Well, apparently hummus is considered a potential hazard and even though the luggage screener had let it through, the TSA agent emptying my bag refused to. When I told her it was sealed and it was my lunch she told me I could go back out of the airport, eat it and then come back in. And go through all this again? My flight leaves in an hour! She was not sympathetic and tossed my hummus in the trash. I suspect after I left she fished it out and had it for her own lunch.

After going through my bag and finding no explosives, the TSA agent took me to a private room and gave me another pat down. I’m not sure why I needed a private room for this because the pat down was exactly the same as before only she used the palm of her hand down the inside of my legs rather than the back of her hand. Bookman gives them the benefit of the doubt and says they are offering privacy, but I suspect it is meant to be intimidating. Of course on the second go-round everything was fine. Except it wasn’t because Bookman and I no longer had any lunch.

Albuquerque airport does not have an abundance of restaurants like the one in Minneapolis does. There was no decent food to be found so we ended up having a big plate of overly priced, greasy french fries for lunch. I have not had french fries in quite a few years and this “lunch” had the curious effect of feeling both like a naughty treat and disgusting at the same time. But between that, some almonds the TSA agent did not deem a threat, and a tiny bag of airplane peanuts, we made it back to Minneapolis a little hungry but not starving.

There wasn’t much time for reading during our stay in Albuquerque but of course I had plenty of reading material! I had my Kobo with several books on it, my iPad with magazines, and I finished reading The Martian by Andy Weir on the airplane yesterday.

It’s nice to be home, sleeping in my own bed that doesn’t sag in the middle, not having to breathe dry desert air and dry, overly air conditioned air, having my garden-gone-wild and being surrounded by brilliant greens instead of the dusky desert colors, which are pretty but don’t exactly satisfy me.

Oh, one last thing! Thursday last week while weeding in the garden around some milkweed and feeling a bit sad about not hosting any monarchs this year, I came upon a big fat monarch caterpillar! It was huge and I suspect, close to being ready to spin a cocoon. I will have to keep my eyes out for it!

Back to work for me tomorrow and back to a regular schedule. Breaking up your routine is good to do now and then, but it is also nice to get back to one as well.