Sorry, folks.  I have at least four drafts started, but I am just not feeling deep enough today for substance.  I am frantically getting ready to fly out to New York to see my youngest sibling get hitched.  That I can trade the lingering summer heat of Arkansas for the autumn leaves of the Hudson River Valley is a big fat bonus. 

I would be entirely thrilled with the expedition, except for that little thing that makes traveling sad and scary nowadays:

Who can not miss kissing those chocolate-covered cheeks in the morning? 

I will admit that travel now holds that faint, repressed fear that each separation might be the last, and that there is faulty equipment and evildoers lurking on every airplane.  The thought is almost physically painful to contemplate.  Poor Harry has had to suffer the requests for “one more sugar” with reluctant stoicism.  Anything to delay those little bye-bye waves and his tiny face receding as the car drives away. 

Sound melodramatic?  Wait ’til you have kids, you’ll understand.

Breathe in.  Breathe out.