7.03.2009

home.again.home.again.

Jiggity jig. Here are a few random things that relate to home.

1. My flight was a bit rougher than my flight to hong kong. I flew through san francisco, and due to the fantastic boson weather, ended up at the airport for 5.5 hours. What made this painful was the fact that i was there (and trying to stay awake) from what was 2:30-8am hong kong time. Were i on a plane, i'd have been able to nap a bit. Though i have never really been able to sleep, a few 15 min cat naps seem to work wonders for me, and limit any potential jet lag. I finally got to boston around 1:30am, and wrestled with all the other delayed passengers for luggage before meeting up with my wonderful parents (who refused to let me take a cab home!).

2. Thanks to facebook, i knew the boston weather had been crappy for about 5 weeks straight. Since i had adjusted to temps in the 90's, super strong sun (and the resulting tan despite being religious with 55 spf sunscreen), and high humidity, i was a little concerned with coming back to the cold wet weather. I bundled up in fleece, pants, socks, etc. for the flight, so when i emerged in the middle of the night, i wasn't as freezing as i thought i might be. I was still cold though.

3. I think it's funny how everything that used to be familiar looks so strange after being away for so long. Roads, houses, colors, etc. Everything seemed darker to me, except the green stuff. That seemed much lusher and brighter, though that's likely because of the previously mentioned weather.

4. Smells again. The smells of houses and cars were so strong and obvious to me after coming back. The scents must be filed away in the memory somewhere. I think this is the case for most people too- not just connected to my strong sniffer.

5. Hong kongers drive on the other side of the road. I didn't drive while i was there, but i did spend a considerable amount of time in cabs, on buses, and with p. in the car. My impulse quickly became to drive rotaries in a clockwise direction, and to take soft rights and hard lefts. Vivian (my car) stayed with my parents while i was gone. This was so they could have an extra car should kevin or julie be around and need to drive. Because my parents are saints (which must make me one too, right?) they had vivian's clutch replaced and her oil changed while i was gone. Driving a car with a new clutch when your old one was really bad takes some getting used to. So, while driving home for the first time this morning, i had to consistently remind myself that i didn't want to die. Shift, soft left, counterclockwise at the rotary.

6. I spent the afternoon weeding the garden. It was ridiculous. I never got around to planting all the veggies, but did completely clean out the vegetable garden. The entire thing was jam packed with weeds that reached mid- thigh. It took quite a while to tame it down. Thanks rain. Though it's too late to plant from seeds, i'm hoping to find some plants somewhere and hopefully get some tomatoes (etc) going for early fall. 

7. The weather today was my idea of perfect. 83 F, 0% humidity, sunny, with a very light breeze. I could handle this all the time.

1 comment:

Louie Monkey-Pest said...

Whew, glad you are back. I thought you were one of those mail-order brides, only in reverse, hoping to marry some Asian so you could get that green card ( or whatever they call it over there) for Hong Kong.