Catching My Breath

June has been a bear on the travel front. We were in Nashville early in the month. Then mid-month, Warren and I flew to Denver for a three-day conference I needed to attend. Traveling alone is difficult for me (nigh well impossible); Warren was indispensable. While I immersed myself in the conference, Warren worked on Symphony matters (the 4th of July, the Symphony's annual free concert for several thousand people, is almost upon us) and spent time with his son David, who moved out to southeastern Colorado back in February.

From Denver, we flew to Minneapolis, spent an afternoon with friends and family, then headed south to Rochester and Mayo. Two days later, we were back in Minneapolis to go, finally, home.

That was last Wednesday. Saturday I took off to Kentucky with my dad, brother, and sister-in-law for a long overdue trip. It was just a day trip, but it was one more trip in a month full of them.

I feel as if I am still catching my breath.

But I'm home. At least for now. And that is enough.

I will be writing more  in the days to come. The Kentucky trip especially demands a post. But in the midst of all the travel, in the midst of 4th of July preparations, and in the midst of catching my breath, I ran into a wall. A small wall. A little wall. An insignificant wall, in the big scheme of things. But a wall all the same.

Someone was coming to our house at 9:00 this morning whom I had to meet with. I had a cream pie I needed to get made and in the refrigerator before then. At 8:05, I went to pour the heavy cream into a bowl to beat to soft peaks to fold into the pie base. I opened the cream container (which I had frozen two weeks earlier as we prepared to leave town but had thawed yesterday), went to pour it out, and...nothing.

Nothing. The cream had the texture of butter. I didn't have time to try it, analyze it, and decide whether I could made it work. The clock was ticking: on the pie, on the upcoming appointment, on the day. So I taped this note to the door and left:

"Baking emergency." Seriously? I have to laugh. But I made it. And it served to remind me that life rolls on, on and off the road.

It's good to be back.