Return journey

Today I took mom to the airport for her morning flight. I bought a muffin and went back to the hotel, where I savoured my muffin with apple cider I bought from an orchard near Gettysburg yesterday on the trip south. For me cider has demarcated autumn the way eggnog says it's Christmas time. It's so strange to be able to drink a season, but cider is such a potent expression of autumn.

Then I drove to Leesburg to meet my friend Kyle for lunch. I walk into the restaurant and who is sitting there but my yoga teacher from Philadelphia. She was in Leesburg for a wedding a week after Meade's wedding. So bizarre. I had a good catch up with Theresa then Kyle. Then I turned in the rental car at Dulles and began the long trip home, a night flight that arrived in Dublin at 5:30 a.m. local time. Then the 2 hour bus trip to Belfast where, luckily, David collected me.

Here's me in the hotel bathroom looking rather arch as I show off my shiner.

Whenever I see photos of myself I think of the joke they told about John Kerry. Kerry walks into a bar and the bar man says: Why the long face?

Ba dum bum.

Oct. 12-13