post-travel settling-in

I'm back on the West Coast after a lovely and fairly uneventful trip to Rhode Island for Christmas! The biggest excitement was when my dad turned too widely into the snow-choked driveway and got stuck, hanging out into the neighborhood street. Fortunately it's always a quiet street, and there was no one out at 8pm on that Sunday night, so we went inside for dinner and called AAA (after some futile pushing and heaving, involving me, my dad, my mom, and my sister!).

Now I've got a day to settle back in before I resume my working life. It's tempting to try to run around to a bunch of stores and hit any holiday sales that may be on, but I'm also enjoying being in my own little slice of the Bay Area and not mixing with civilization as a whole.

an aside: I'm mulling over adding a bit of (ha! I should say: still more!) storage for kitchen stuff, but this time it's going to have to spill over into my living room. I think I want a cabinet with solid doors to store things like my liquor, wine, wine glasses, crock pot, Dutch oven, cookie sheets, Bundt pans.. I even have a place to put this storage - I just don't know what I want. And I don't think I can bring myself to hit IKEA today, so it will wait.

a second aside: Every time I add to my now-copious stores of Stuff, I realize I'm less and less likely to chuck it all and travel the world. Truthfully, I think I'm a bit too much of a homebody to EVER do that, but it is something I think about whenever I acquire yet another thing. Of course stumbling onto my Most Excellent Apartment when I moved here has already dictated that I won't stick my stuff in storage and go on a long trip in-between jobs. Traveling without paying rent/mortgage back home seems ideal, but at present, I don't see that happening.

back to the main post: I've so far accomplished two of my time-honored post-travel rituals: first, I've exploded my bags into my living space. The second ritual is to go out for breakfast for one last hurrah before I resume cooking for myself. I did it when I got back from my three-week trip to Ireland & Scotland this spring, too: even though I was SO happy to be in my space, and was looking forward to cooking, I had nothing on hand and wanted breakfast. I remember knowing I was really ending my vacation, and I almost went for Fancy Breakfast at the Spanish restaurant, but at the last minute didn't want anything complicated. I also really wanted an American Breakfast after three glorious weeks of non-standard breakfast fare. So today, I did what I did that day in May - walked around the corner to the neighborhood cafe, and ordered the Pancake Special: 2 pancakes, 2 eggs (fried, over hard), and 2 strips of bacon - with coffee, and water. Bliss.