Back to the Grind

Another day, another sack lunch; only six more weeks until summer break! And, yes, we did just have spring break last week, what is your point?

Speaking of spring break, The Teenager finally made it home from DC Saturday night, following some unexpected time spent in the Denver airport when delay after delay forced the group’s plane to take off five hours later than expected.

While I, having done more traveling than my daughter, was not at all surprised by that turn of events, The Teenager was fit to be tied; she called me several times to moan about the injustice visited upon her by high winds, plane malfunctions and cloud cover while I gently instructed her to look at it all as a learning experience; travel by flight is never as convenient as one hopes and learning to grapple with delays in as graceful a manner as possible will serve her well in the future.

The Teenager took that bit of sage advice and ran with it; spending the remainder of the layover cruising DIA chatting up random strangers and somehow convincing flight attendants to ride the escalator up and down, up and down while singing hip-hop tunes and high-fiving each other; her photo album of the DC trip will be a priceless memento, if for the photos of United Airlines employees getting their groove on, alone. And, the distraction proved sucessful; in what seemed like no time at all, the group was ready to board the flight home.

Naturally, the turbulence encountered by the small plane on the forty-five minute flight caused The Teenager to become nauseous, thus cementing her hatred of this particular mode of transportation but, the photo album doesn’t capture that particular aspect of the trip so, all in all, it was a good time.

While his sister was touring our nation’s capitol, the Man-Cub spent his vacation hanging out with Darren, snake-wrangling at Jana’s, fishing and entertaining me with his unique perspective on life. You know; the usual.

And, as I said, only six more weeks of school left before summer break. It really can’t come soon enough; I am so very ready to get the vegetable garden planted, to break the porch in and to lie in the sun on the boat.

Or, at the very least, I’m looking forward to not having to get up every morning to decide what the hell to pack in the Man-Cub’s lunchbox. Hell, I might banish peanut butter and jelly from my kitchen for the entire summer just to avoid the flashbacks.