Back to the banal

I take my sister Miss Kitty back to the airport tomorrow after getting to spend nince wonderful days with her.  Even with more than a week together, we still didn't get to do all the things we'd planned to do together.  We never made it to Tattered Cover, for example, and I didn't take her to the gym to show her some exercises with an exercise ball.  But we did do some yoga together and did some shopping (mostly window), and we took a lot of walks through my lovely old neighborhood and the surrounding, more affluent 'hoods.  Kitty cooked dinner for us a couple of nights during the week, including some nummy beef stew that we ate for a couple of nights in a row, and some orange rosemary chicken that I will put in a salad tomorrow for lunch.  We ate well, talked well, slept well, and lived well.  It was also great to have her here when things went to hell on Thursday to listen and attempt to soothe my fried nerves while watching my friends pack up their desks.

Nine days still wasn't enough.  I will take her to the airport with tears in my eyes but a smile on my face as we plan our next adventure in late May, when I go to Georgia to guest teach a class for one of her colleagues.  And then I will go back to my office, which is now just a little less crowded and a little more eerie, and try to get something done and be bored and come home to no playdate.  Granted, I still have my husband and my sweet but shy kittehs, and Lawd knows I still have a job.  And there's something nice about getting back to "normal" after visitors leave, but having visitors can make you realize that you don't have to do the same thing all the time.  Since the time changed, for example, Kitty and I have been going out for walks almost every evening for at least an hour, getting some extra exercise.  Instead of plopping in front of the TV or leafing through yet another catalog, I could take myself outside and take in the goings-on in my neighborhood and get a little more exercise.  Life doesn't have to be as boring as we let it get.