Home Again, Home Again Jiggity Jig

Things are finally getting back to normal around here. Oh yeah, we didn't mention last week that Roger was gone and I was home alone for the week. Last Sunday I took him to the airport, he flew to California to see his mother, and I stayed home. This was the first time in my life that I stayed alone for that long. One week. Quite challenging for someone who has never been alone, not even in the womb (I love being a twin). The original plan was for my mom to come and spend the week with me, so that Roger and I would have parallel "mom adventures." But for some truly unknown reason, her flight was cancelled. We decided to leave it at that, and I was suddenly on my own and alone for the week.

I discovered some things about myself that I would not have guessed. I cooked complete meals for myself, ate at the table and not in front of the TV, kept the house reasonably straightened up, and hiked a good safe trail alone. I went to dinner one evening with friends, and I cooked a homemade pizza for my neighbor, and afterwards we watched a movie. This all may sound unbelievably mundane, but for me it was an exercise in a new reality. Roger and I have been together 18 years. We can count on one hand the number of nights we've been apart. And, since retirement, we're with each other all the time. We like it too! So this was a huge departure from the norm.
One of the things I concentrated on, while he was gone, was trying to photograph a Golden-crowned Kinglet. These birds are incredibly difficult to get a reasonably good photograph of. They literally move constantly, and they are very small, only slightly larger than a hummingbird. We see them all the time around the yard and on our walks. They flit about and hover ever-so-briefly around the evergreens, going after insects and insect eggs. I've been trying for months to photograph one. I've got at least a hundred blurry, out-of-focus shots. But then I got lucky. Right at the end of the driveway this one stayed briefly on the ground, and I grabbed a photo.
Finally, Saturday morning arrived after yet another sleepless night (I can spend all day home alone, but nights are really hard). I headed out to SeaTac Airport to pick Roger up from his journey. It's almost 100 miles to the airport, heading south around Puget Sound to Tacoma and then north to SeaTac. His plane was on time, but the jetway wouldn't connect, so after nearly a half hour at the gate, the passengers were finally permitted to deplane down the stairs out the back of the plane. I waited in the car at the Passenger Loading/Unloading zone outside of Baggage. Quite surprisingly no one hassled me at all. I thought for sure someone would tell me, little Miss Terrorist that I am, that I should not be parked in an expressly designated NO PARKING- NO WAITING ZONE, but mostly the security seemed vaguely bored, sitting on benches smoking cigarettes. When Roger finally showed up, we agreed that we should take the ferry home, which meant a drive north through Seattle up to Edmunds. It was a perfectly spectacular day for the ferry (click on the above photo to see why). Not a cloud in the sky, and my honey was home from his travels.