Florida Epilogue

So, we're back. Now the cold Smunch picked up in Florida has arrived home with us. With all of us. It's August and we're all sniffly and coughing. Then again, it's August and it's been rainy all day. Perhaps it's all sort of fitting. Better to be a little under the weather at a time like this than in 90 degree heat with 90 percent humidity.

Our trip from St. Petersburg to Tampa International was eventless. Well...I shouldn't say that. There was a small event in there.First one we'd stopped at since we'd been in Florida..and ostensibly, we only stopped to pick up a paper with a story about the game from the night before. But Daddy thought the coffee at the hotel was vile, so...

And here's the beautiful town of St. Pete on our way out. It really is quite lovely. See all the busy people milling around? Yeah. Me neither. Lovely, but terminally strange as cities go.We made it to the airport with time to spare and although we were told that we'd be late arriving in Dallas, we were early and had to sit on the tarmac for 30 minutes while another plane left from our intended gate. Then we found out our connecting flight was also delayed. We had plenty of time for a decent airport lunch. Turns out, we nearly had time for dinner too. Our flight was delayed two and a half hours and we'd gotten in two hours before it was supposed to leave, so we spent almost 5 hours at Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport. Did you know they have Starbucks there? (I digress).

The kids were bored, but all things considered, the waiting wasn't all that bad. Daddy declared DFW a "very nice shopping mall".

We arrived home mid-evening, to all of our relief. Our luggage made it and we called my parents, who were sitting in the cell phone lot, to say we were ready for pickup. They'd driven the mommymobile to be sure everything fit. Only one problem. The battery of said mommymobile had died while they were sitting there. We sat on the curb with our mountain of luggage while they got it jump started.

Smunch had turned into a pint-sized smoking crater by that point, incapable of speaking in a normal voice or putting two words together. Hungry. Tired. Grouchy. Just like me, but hopefully, I hid it better.Mam, in her regular Mammish way, was fine. Cute. Friendly. Happy to be home.We'd planned to go out to dinner, but it's Saturday night in Silicon Valley and Chili's has a half hour wait, another nearby favorite closed at 8...it's now 8:05 (or 11:05 in Tampa). We opted to call ahead for pizza at our favorite place. I love them. When I placed the order, they already knew who it was for. Good to be home.

Our cats had missed us so much that they wouldn't leave us alone. And they needed to let us know what they thought about how well our housesitter had cleaned out their litter box. Litter box. Open suitcase full of clothes. Hmmm... Those slightly damp, disgusting clothes clearly don't smell nearly bad enough. They fixed that.

Welcome back to our real life.