travel...travel...everybody likes to travel....

travel...travel...that's how we get around.

(My sisters will be the only ones singing along. Those are lyrics from a song on one of the children's tapes we listened to ad nauseam growing up. I don't know how my mother stood it.)

I just got back from a lovely trip to Washington, DC with my wonderful husband. He had a conference to attend for work and my mother (hereafter known only as "the saint") offered to take the children so that I could go with him for a couple of days. I'm a wimp and couldn't leave the kids for an entire week, so today I left him there and came home to my babies.

We used to live in DC, back in the day, and it was so fun to see old friends and co-workers and eat out and just spend time together. It was horrible to leave John there, but so nice to cuddle my baby to sleep tonight.

After I got up early, packed, checked in, and went all through security, I realized that I had read the time wrong on my itinerary and was TWO HOURS early for my flight. I was really frustrated because I hate it when I make really obvious mistakes like that, and I could have stayed in bed a little longer and cuddled with my perfect husband; today was one of the few days he didn't have early morning sessions. Plus, I was all emotional because I hadn't seen my children for four days, and flying makes me extremely nervous (I don't get panic attacks anymore, but it takes a lot of focus.)

I was ready to cry, and really needed a few minutes to collect myself, by myself. Airports are not exactly private places, but I looked around anyway.

Military personnel have their own private lounge, so to smokers. Some airports even have a kiddie area where kids can run around before being confined to a small space for a long time. Where is the lounge for people who enjoy where they have been, would like to get where they are going and would rather be anywhere but here?

Oh, wait. That is the entire airport. Right. And please don't give me any crap about "life is about the journey" and all that. If life is about airports, put me on a terrorist watch list.

It wasn't very crowded, so I escaped to the ladies room and locked myself in the handicapped stall. For those of you who haven't tried it, a wheelchair accessible bathroom stall is big enough to run through a quick half sun salute (yoga) and take several deep breaths in downward facing dog (more yoga). Yes, I put my hands on the floor of a public restroom in Washington DC. But I washed them right after, and look - I'm still alive. More to the point, I didn't start sobbing at gate 14 of Reagan National.

So now I am home and I am going to sleep in my own bed and pray for Friday to come quickly so that my whole family can be together again.

But Washington DC was beautiful.