Really. Not in Kansas anymore.

Bush bumper stickers everywhere.  (Really?  Still?) 

 

Mosquitos and humidity (though just a bit of both, so I shouldn't complain too much).  A family reunion of sorts where everyone my age is on their third husband and/or fourth kid (and everyone except me is drinking a lot), where my mom actually said to someone I'd never met before, "Well Jen(n) never got married" - as though I was a 95-year-old spinstress pining away for lost love instead of a 34-year-old independent woman not remotely interested in that nonsense.  THANKS, Mom.

 

Dad's started in on the guilt about moving back east after reminding me to brush my teeth and explaining to me who Jay Leno was - he hosted the Tonight Show for a decade or so, in case you weren't aware.  This is before he turns the water back on after we've been gone all day, and after he unlocks the 19 locks to the house.  Fort Knox has nothing on this place.  If I had a car here he would offer to wash it.

 

Dial-up internet, 5 TV channels, Peets in the freezer from Christmas '07 because I forgot to bring any fresh grinds with me this time.  My second oldest friend has a kid.  (The oldest friend?  Not so strange that she's a mom.  This one kinda freaked me out though.) 

 

And the pool hall I loved as a kid is now a 7-Eleven.

 

Five days is plenty, me thinks.