We are home at last. There is much to tell of a day at the spa with my sister-in-law and a lot of glamorous and irreverent southern women, of my adventures in the ocean that left me with one contact lens and a skinned knee, of my friends M. and K. and their newly adopted baby L.S. and of a 20 year reunion of a group of friends that made me very reflective about my life and my friends in general. But after three days on the road, I find I�m not quite up to the task tonight and these tales will have to wait a day or two.

We arrived home shortly after noon, and it was not a moment too soon, as we were all beginning to get quite snippy with one another. After unloading and unpacking (my husband and I both have some sickness that requires that we deal with all unpacking as close to instantaneously as possible) and putting AJ down for a not, I headed outside to put the garden to rights. We came home to another round of flowers � yellow coneflowers, another spate of delphiniums, phlox, and, the most exciting, the Rose-of-Sharon hibiscus that I planted when we first moved in finally bloomed. A fragrant bouquet of mint flowers and Russian sage, spiked with yellow coneflowers and orange lilies, stands on the kitchen table. It�s nice to be home.

I leave you instead, with a couple of fragments of conversation from our endless drive::

AJ: Mommy, do you have to wear a seatbelt in an airplane?
Harriet: Yes, you do.
AJ: Oh, I know that! I mean, I know why!
Harriet: Why?
AJ: Because when the plane flies upside-down, then you don�t bump your head on the ceiling.

* * * * *
(following a discussion of the designations AM and PM after watching the weather channel in a motel)

AJ: But I thought AM was on the radio.
Harriet: It is, but it stands for something different. AM also means morning.
AJ: And afternoon is P.M. I know. I know.
Harriet: That�s right.
AJ: and FM is at night.
Harriet: Um, no. Night is still PM. FM is only on the radio.
AJ: Oh. (watches weather channel once more). So that map says it�s going to rain on the radio.
Harriet: If the radio is outside in the morning, then I guess that�s true.
AJ: Good.

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