arrival

...and the plane's shadow rises up to meet us, becoming darker and sharper, stretched out across the ground, the low angle of the evening sun stretching the wheels out into huge ovals groping towards me.

It hangs just beneath us for one breathless moment of indecision, waiting, then — down.The faintest bounce, then once more held in gravity's embrace.

Welcome home.

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The trip was uneventful aside from a missed-by-thirty-seconds bus connection on the way to the airport; luckily I had more than enough slack to cover it.

t3h haul so far

What I Got For Christmas:

• The plane tickets to New Orleans!
  
• A 'pizza stone'. This big clay dish for cooking pizza on, supposedly leading to much crisper crust.
  
• A funky cool faux-denim Hello Kitty wallet.
  
• Books: the latest Discworld ("Monstrous Regiment"), "The Substance of Style", a book on, well, style, and "The Spider and the Fly" as illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi (in an Edward Gorey/Chas. Addams mode).
  
• Symbolic acceptance (locked entry)
  
• And a cordless phone.
  

Mostly, I suspect that relatives will give me checks. Works for me.