Since my last note, N and I packed and moved everything to storage and drove both cars 16 plus hours (avec le chat) to our native land - with only a brief stop in Newark, OH (because there was no room in the inn - ANYWHERE ELSE.) Poor Kee-kah had to sleep in the gramoidial car with windows cracked. She has been - miraculously - a contented traveler. Was it prayers or At Ease or both? We will never know, but she only meowed the madcat meow a few times before we drove off from Pomfret Street, and then it was easy riding the rest of the way.

I've been recovering from the move (up for 24 hours+) and  travel-lag all week and as of now am not completely my whole self. I am quiet and my eyes aren't quite the right shape - rather sleepy-piggish. (My eyelash curler is working overtime.)

Thus far, we have done not much else in Springfield other than futilly searching local grocery stores for things we usually eat. I have optimistically shopped at least thirty times in the last few days. (I had forgotten about those charming people who sit on the benches next to the carts and flex their toothless jaws...as, I suppose, they are waiting for some bus or relative or police to pick them up.)

Springfield seems to be under construction. Roads are all orange-coned and detoured from north to south, and somehow twice as many people are [attempting to] drive on them.

N's interview in DC went well last Monday. Pray that we hear something promising SOON.

Tomorrow includes church (somewhere?) and RibCrib. Oh yes. Giant plates of slow-roasted meat! Yes, it is good to be back in barbecue land - even if only for a little while...

Happy Friday. And Happy Birthday Tara! (I don't think I'll ever forget.)