Home

I love traveling, but I love being home, too. Such a dilemma!  Home is all the small joys... My favorite coffee - a mix of Equal Exchange coffees that I buy at Wheatsville, my local food co-op. It's a wonderful thing to sit in one's own house with a cat on one's lap and drink a cup of coffee and fiddle on the computer... Check your email, read the NY Times and BBC sites, and contemplate your day.


There's so much to catch up on when you get home, even from a short trip. There's all the mail. Just sorting it - the junk from the stuff that's important - is a PITA. There's laundry to do, so, when I first get back, I feel like I'm just a tad 'behind the beat.' On this last trip, most of that came from getting up at 4 in the morning to leave Chapel Hill and fly home. It totally discombobulates me to get up that early. There's such a huge difference - for me - between getting up at 4 am and getting up at 6 am. I know myself, and the surest way for me to get sick is to have to get up before 6 am and do something stressful, like fly.


Not that flying itself is stressful, but you're so completely NOT in charge of anything once you get to the airport. And the food at airports - other than Austin's airport - just sucks. It's not food; it's some kind of plastic food-like substance that tastes gross and costs big bucks. I usually take my own food. Thank goodness no one's tried to put a bomb in a mango lately! I carry an empty plastic water bottle with me to refill at water fountains. Plus, at RDU, both Terminals 1 & 2 have 2nd Edition Booksellers, a locally-owned second-hand book store. Terminal 1 has the 'big' store; Terminal 2 is more of a kiosk type thing, but still, locally-owned! Used! 


Austin's airport, for those of you who have not been lucky enough to fly into Austin, has no chain food places. Or bookstores. It's real food. It may not be healthy food - it's still BBQ, ice cream, Mexican and pizza - but it's actual food cooked by real people. And the bookstore is our local, independent BookPeople.


This year I'm making a real effort NOT to buy anymore bottles of water, and to carry a reusable coffee cup with me so I don't have to use another plastic/styrofoam/paper cup. I have one in my car, but remembering to take it into a coffee place is difficult. 


And I haven't even tried to get one through airport security. Maybe next time.