HOME WITH A CAPITAL H

Home and unpacked and garden watered and deadheaded. 
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TRAVEL HIGHLIGHTS:

- All sterling flatware, distributed amongst four pieces of luggage, arrived safely. Ditto Chex Mix, Snyders Honey Mustard pretzels, 2 pecan rolls from Balducci's, Kretzsmer's Honey Wheat Germ, and two boxes (Dare and Trader Joe brands) Maple Leaf cookies--all intact despite notes left in all cases by Border Patrol to say the cases had been opened.

- 2 glasses of perfect-just-hit-the-spot Villa Maria Sauvingon Blanc in Virgin lounge at JFK. Accompanied by Duck Roll in Bibb Lettuce, Cheese Toastie, Chips with Curry Dip, and a bowl of radishes with pesto-salt. While reading the Daily Mail, not allowed over the threshold on Mr. King's orders, so,  a rare treat. Bliss.

-Spoke to Peg, spoke to Odd. Peg didn't have her teeth in but, I think, thanked me for all I'd done, causing me to drop the phone onto the carpet via the curry sauce. Odd seemed to think I was at JFK en route to Becket, not London and said how nice it was going to be to see me again.

- Spurn Me Not Angel Honeybear, well-known Pissing Defecating Collie, formerly of Becket, Massachusetts, is happily ensconced in Pine Plains, NY,  frolicking with needlenosed buddies. Happy as Larry, is the report I got. Also that she threw up in Bonnie's back seat on the way to the rendezvous at Four Brother's Pizza in Great Barrington. Peg insisted on accompanying Bonnie, so Bonnie, still with vertigo  (and the one who should have been throwing up) had to drive to Lee to collect her and then back again to deposit her, even though Bonnie lives near Great Barrington. I haven't spoken to Bonnie about this, am scared to, don't want to hear she's too sick to get Odd into the car today and installed at Laurel Lake in the bed next to Peg's.
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In the Red Dot Airport Transfer mini van from Westport to JFK which had a "CHANGE OIL" reminder siren that went off about every four feet, and a van which I believe must have lost all four shock absorbers somewhere along the line, possibly Norwalk (nothing but First Class for me), I struck up a conversation with the only other passenger, a woman about my age, possibly older, on her way back from Connecticut to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where she lives and runs an Italian deli with her husband. Her son, 34, is in a specialist hospital up in New Britain. Brain damage, after a car accident eight years ago. Fell asleep at the wheel. Was trying to wean himself off heroin. He can move his eyelids, that's it. She doesn't know how much he understands, if anything, but when the nurses say "Your Mother's on the phone" his eyes shoot open. They hold the phone to his ear. It costs the state $33, 000 per month to give him the care he needs at the hospital. The state, after eight years, is now trying to move him to a nursing home, where it will cost less than half of that, and where, according to his mother, he will pretty much lie there forgotten. There are no specialist hospitals in South Carolina, hardly any nursing homes. In South Carolina if a family member falls ill, you care for them at home. This is impossible. The mother is beside herself. 

Looking after a couple of occasionally smelly forgetful folk in the nineties doesn't really compare. 

Still, give me a few days, and I'm sure I'll find something to complain about, even three thousand miles away.