on the scene.

Despite heavy rains the entire drive, I made it down from Boston to Philadelphia in short order last night, fueled not in a small part by my wife's cooking, which was excellent- I now know the secret to late-night travel down the Northeast Corridor: a 0130 start to bypass morning NY traffic, energy drinks, decent country music, and a hot meal before leaving the house.
As always, it was a bittersweet parting. The Boy had surgery this morning, and was apparently severely nonplussed at my absence when he came out of anaesthesia. He and I said our goodbyes last night, and he's usually pretty flexible with me- there's never been any real trouble or complaining before, but, then again, he woke up, disoriented and drugged, and my wife was there, so he was calmed down relatively quickly, but try explaining that to a really high 6-year old.
It was definitely time for me to get out of the house. My wife was absolutely tired of me being underfoot. Normally, I bounce off the walls of my home (AKA The Ant Farm) if I sit still for more than five minutes; this time, I came home with bronchitis, which I then passed to my wife, then The Boy got strep throat, which he passed to me, and then I got a cold from somewhere else, too.

I am not a sickly person- in fact, I think that my immune system is pretty damn awesome, under normal circumstances. So it goes.

Anyhow, what with the illness, and the anxious child, and supplemental insanity coming from my family and hers, by the time I was ready to go back to work, Inappropriately Hot Foreign Wife looked like this:



















napkin holder being thrown at husband in 3...2...1...



All the same, there is nothing quite so miserable as silencing the alarm clock at 1am and having to leave a perfectly warm and sleepy wife full of the knowledge that it'll be a long while before I'll be back in the big bed.

So, I arrived at my barge at 9am, and immediately set to work. By 6pm, I was talking to myself, and managed to sleep a bit. Such will be the way of things for the next 28 days.