(no subject)

It's that time of year... anniversaries, my birthday, field season, Pat not well. Today at church we were applauded for our upcoming anniversary (our 20th, in two days). I tried to be sociable afterwards...

This afternoon, more domesticity... cleaning my bedroom in the garage, in preparation for Nancy's visit next Friday. And clearing out debris fromthe front corner of the garage so I could remove the stored kitchen cabinet there for refinishing. Pat gamely helped, even though the chaos and clutter made her visibly wince.

Finally... field season has started. The first-phase group arrived at Resolute yesterday... I don't arrive for 3 weeks yet, but today I packed most of my gear and put up and took down my new tent. It needs to be airfreighted ahead, leaving NASA by this Thursday. And project updates should soon start appearing on http://arctic-mars.org, if anyone's interested.

To bed now... must get up in three-plus hours to go to the airport, headed to the Washington, DC area.

Sweet reminders

Thunder and lightning, outside... while I look over at a pillow indentation where someone's dear head recently rested. I almost don't want to draw back the covers, and lose the evidence of presence.

Any day in which I crawl out of bed with one sleepy beloved, see another sweetie for lunch and cuddles, and have dinner with a third adored-one is generally a pretty good day :-). Even when they're scattered thousands of miles apart across a continent. My life doesn't scrape (grin), in yet-another way. Not to mention how long NRE persists in long-distance relationships...

So, I'm in the Washington, DC area tonight, watching a thunderstorm from the Virginia suburbs. I'm here to brief an air-traffic contractor tomorrow, just inside the Beltway. This morning, I was up at 4:30am (with three hours sleep), leaving patgreene with a caress... then on a 6:30am flight to Minneapolis, where I met Nancy for lunch. And on to Washington... where I met geekchick for dinner, after getting lost twice trying to find her and the restaurant. Every time I see her in person, I'm reminded of how intensely I miss her presence in day-to-day things... enough to break down briefly after dinner. That, or perhaps accumulated stress on my part. Or a dry-quirkiness craving? (smile) And she had a lovely new sundress, showing enough that her cleavage continually distracted me through dinner.

(fond sigh) I'm a very blessed person...