Conference travel, fire drills, and begoggled harley dogs.

I'm sitting in the airport in Philadelphia, waiting for my flight to take me home to Kansas. I've been here for a few days for the Fatigue and Fracture Conference that Lehigh U holds in Philly every two years. The conference was productive I guess, and I like Philadelphia. The conference is held in a hotel that is in the very center of downtown, so it makes it easy to walk around and sight-see a little bit. Not that I took full advantage or anything, but it was nice to know that I could. Regardless, it's nice to be out of my dress clothes and back in jeans for the rest of the week.

I can't wait to get home and see Ceci and Aaron. I kept looking at my photos of her on my phone. That part of traveling just sucks, no two ways around it.

We just had a fire drill in the terminal here at the airport. I was eating lunch, and was a little surprised when all the sirens went off and no one made a move at all. I guess this must be a regular occurence? So, I finished my lunch and then walked around. No one seemed to care about the constant warnings to seek a fire exit, except one lady who kept claiming that she smelled smoke (there was no smoke smell, to be sure). After 20 minutes, the alarms shut up, and no one seemed to notice.

This is one thing I've never gotten used to - for some reason, people pretend like they don't notice the weirdest stuff. Why is that? Don't they care? Seems to me like there's plenty of stuff to notice. A half-hour fire alarm, and I think no one else (except for the smoke-smelling lady) even noticed the thing was sounding off. Drives me crazy. It's not that I can't stand people who are oblivious - that's not what I'm talking about (I am far too oblivious to throw that stone) - it's people who notice that something out of the ordinary is happening, and then don't think about it further. Strange. Like the other thing I saw today...

So, I saw the craziest thing on the cab ride over here from the hotel. I was on the highway, and looked out the window at a motorcyclist riding next to us. He had a small white dog on his lap, wearing goggles. Yep. I kid you not. It was surreal. So, I was asking myself if I had really seen that, when 5 minutes later he passed us... and the begoggled dog was on the luggage rack. I seriously hope that was a stuffed dog. It really, really looked real... but seriously? It had to be stuffed. Right? In any case, the cab driver had to have seen it. Not a peep. Really? I mean, real or stuffed, that's just eccentric! It had to at least be worthy of a comment! I'm not asking for a drawn-out conversation about the dog wearing goggles on the motorcycle, but at least a "Huh, that's weird." Gosh. It seemed like something to me that should have been properly appreciated.

Brash. Brazen. Daring.

Finally. A magazine about sailing that DARES to tell me what no one else will.

WHAT?!?! Are you freaking serious? We're talking about SAILBOATS, right??? Does this thing come in an opaque plastic cover?

This showed up in the mail the other day, presumably because Aaron subscribes to a magazine called "Wooden Boat," because he is not-so-secretly plotting to build a boat in the garage sometime (which is another layer of funny altogether, if you have ever seen our garage or backyard). We laughed for a long, long time over this. I mean, seriously, what exactly are the conventional sailing magazines withholding from us? And mud-slinging? Tossing bouquets? I can only hope that last one is some sailing pun that I don't get.

I am so thoroughly confused, and still laughing...

So, as you can tell, I managed to survive that last flight. Whew. Close one. Actually, it was surprisingly easy. Ceci was great on the outbound flight to Cleveland, and on the way home we gave up and just let her destroy all the seat-pocket magazines that she could get her hands on. Note to self: bring old magazines for baby to destroy on next flight.

We had a great time in Ohio... it felt like a real vacation (which, as it turns out, are hard to come by). It was so nice to not feel rushed and to get to spend time with everyone. It makes me really miss when we were both in grad school, when we were able to do that trip a couple times every summer.

Aaron and I were able to duck out for a day while Nora watched Ceci... We met David at his new house in Mentor, OH (lovely, BTW) and went to an Indians game on what had to be the most beautiful day that I have ever been to a baseball game on. It seems that most baseball games I attend are on days when it's 95+ degrees or raining or both. This day was beautiful. I didn't really care that the Indians lost; if I had had a Reds tee-shirt, I would have worn it. What a fun afternoon, though. I love baseball games. I had a beer, soft pretzel, and my feet were in the sun. Bliss.

What else. Hmm. I ate too much cheeseball and drank too much vino. It got so cold at night that we had to close the windows (yay!) and were able to roast s'mores over a fire. Definitely not something you can do on the 4th of July in Lawrence! Aaron and I took Tye crawdad hunting in a creek. Aaron helped Tye set up a chipmunk 'trap', which sadly, was intended to squash chipmunks when they wandered near a peanut-butter smeared stick propping up an ill-fated rock. Very sad, I know. I do not understand this anger towards what is possibly the cutest of all woodland animals. When I say "catch", I really envision catching cute little animals, not squashing them. We had wheelbarrow races, sack races, and blindfolded races. Quite the work-out. We hunted bugs of all sorts with the kids.

Best of all, Ceci had an absolute blast with her adoring fan club of cousins. I was a little worried that she might overload on attention, but au contraire, I think she was genuinely sad when we came home!

4th of July Pics - Kinsman, OH

Here are some photos from a long weekend at Grandma and Grandpa Bennett's. :-)