Southern Indiana

We spent the morning recovering from staying up too late last night, of course. This is the standard experience whenever we visit my in-laws. Lovely folks, but confirmed night people, every last one of them. Fortunately, they've been quite tolerant over the years of my preference for mornings, even if they aren't entirely convinced that it's not some sort of personality disorder. It's hardly my worst fault; I mean, I've never learned to drink iced tea with sugar in it, either.

This is the way families function: a mixture of teasing and tolerance, with a sprinkling of amused resignation regarding foibles and idiosyncracies. They're good that way.

This afternoon some additional family came over for dinner. Nieces and nephews running rampant-- at full speed and nearly full volume-- while the grownups sat at the table and caught up with one another. All great fun, really-- but it was also lovely to enjoy the quiet when they all went home, as my extroverted side only has a limited durability before it needs to curl up and hide. They left with one extra passenger: The Boy went home with his cousin to spend the night, where they will no doubt stay up much too late bonding over video games and plotting ways to massacre alien hordes.

I am still dealing with the sniffling, sneezing, stuffy head and watery eyes; hardly what you'd call a fun date. Thankfully, my thoughtful husband brought me home a sackful of pharmaceutical solutions designed to alleviate the worst of it. So I am at least functional, if not as perky as I'd like to be.