Saturday, July 18, 2020

We’re home! I love to travel, but I also love to come home. There’s something about this space that is entirely ours. When I’m gone, I especially miss my kitchen and my bed. And my pillow. I’m sitting on the screened porch writing this, and although I didn’t consciously miss the porch, I realize the vacation would have been better with one. It‘s hot and humid here at home, but I‘m quite comfortable on the porch with the ceiling fan going.

Our trip home was pretty unremarkable. We left the AirBnB about 7:40 am, stopped at the closest Smoothie King to pick up breakfast, and found out it didn‘t open until 9:00. So we went quite a ways off our path to one that was open. At that point, it made sense to take the scenic route, so we did that for a while, and it added probably one to two hours to the trip. The girls slept more than half the way, and I think Georgia slept the whole way. She was, once again, so well-behaved. And I think her presence helped entertain Madeline.

I spent the trip watching the miniseries Self-Made on Netflix. It‘s “inspired by” the life of Madam C.J. Walker, so built her cosmetics empire in Indianapolis. There’s a theater named after her on Indiana avenue, and I once attended a naturalization ceremony there. It’s really neat. I did some research while I watched and learned that Madam’s only daughter was a big part of the Harlem Renaissance.

When we arrived home the house looked great, because our house cleaners had come Thursday. It was really nice returning to an immaculate house. Unfortunately, after a couple hours we discovered that they had left the window in Madeline’s bathroom open, which explained why it was terribly hot upstairs.

Andrew and I unpacked, although I don’t think the girls did, and it was an early night for me.