Homecoming: Without the Big Hair and Poofy Dress

I'm sleeping in a single bed. A really SMALL single bed. In a room that looks like a key lime pie exploded all over the walls. In a two-story brown house, with really ancient wrought iron railing for the staircase handrails. The brown marble carpet is about a quarter of a century old, but it still feels soft under my feet. Without fail, every time I'm in this house I feel like I'm 15 again, needing permission for anything.

I love it.

I'm actually in my baby brother's old room, which should relieve at least a couple of you who might have been concerned about the color of the walls. My old room was converted into a storage area. The teeny, tiny bed actually was my mom's when she was a young girl. Well, not the mattress! (Although I will admit that I do truly miss my own mattress....this one just doesn't feel right!) I'll try to get some pictures while I'm here, but there's no guarantee that they'll make it to the blog. My mom made me promise that if I blogged about my stay here, I had to NOT write anything that might make her look bad. Quite frankly, I'm not sure the color of these walls would put her in the best light, so there's the very real possibility that she'll sneak my camera away and delete them from the memory card before I get a chance to post them.

I've been here about 26 hours, and I've already been taken around and shown off like a prize puppy or something. Its really been kinda cute. Each time my mom introduces me to someone, I keep expecting her to start listing all of my accomplishments. So far, the only ones she's trotted out are the fact that I have the distinction of having provided the oldest and the youngest grandchildren for her. I feel a little bad about taking credit for that, though, since it wasn't just me involved in that.

Can I go off on a small tangent here? Its somewhat related. Really. Has anyone besides me ever noticed how stinkin' COLD it is on airplanes??? WTH??? By the time the plane landed my fingers were so stiff and frozen I could hardly use them to call my dad and tell him I was finally here! My toes were purple!! I couldn't figure out how to turn the stupid air flow off, or even direct it away from my seat. And I was scared to ask for a blanket. With all the new charges airlines are doing these days, I was afraid a blanket would cost as much as the ticket itself had! Seriously.... $3.00 for a can of Diet Pepsi? I also feared discovering that the bathroom might have been converted into a "pay-per-use", coin operated closet. I'm still not sure on that one, as I didn't get up until we landed. I don't think my legs could have thawed enough to move, anyway.

For all of that, though, there was one great thing about that airplane. It brought me back to the one place where I've always known I was loved. Always known someone didn't expect something from every minute of my day. The one place where I don't have to be responsible for someone else. Heck, often I don't have to be responsible for myself. And I really needed that this week.

Even if the walls looked like they belonged in the bedroom belonging to a Rainbow Brite character!