We got back a few hours ago and although it's late I think it'll be awhile before either of us go to bed. Steven's got my top-loader Nintendo out with Dr. Mario going and I'm listening to Tryo perhaps a tad louder than my neighbors would be happy with. (Tryo is a French reggae band that I became acquainted with during an exchange trip to Normandie-Basse in high school.)

I don't want to sound overly focused on STUFF, but since gathering things that were left behind when I moved was a large focus of this trip, I feel it's appropriate to express my total glee at having a few of those things back with me. I do have my Nintendos (plural, yes), and their associated cords and controls--and Steven got excited and made them work too, thankfully, since it would have taken me awhile to figure out how to make it work again since it's been awhile.

I have my music collection back now too. My computer melted down the spring before I moved here. And then when I moved here, my back-up computer also had a tiny meltdown, so I've been without my own collection of music. However haphazard and small a collection, I am happy to have it back, and to have a computer to transfer all the data onto.

I have my missing slipper--my mom gave me green slippers for Christmas a couple of years ago and I haven't been able to find the missing one since I got here. I haven't actually had occasion to need to wear slippers around the house because it's generally warm here, and I generally dislike having my feet covered when I can avoid it, but in the back of my mind it's been bugging me that every time I reunite pairs of socks that one's mate has never turned up in the laundry.

I have my quilt back. It's a very large, bright, soft quilt that I got from Target in my first attempt to brighten up my life and my surroundings. I had just moved into an apartment that had very old architecture when I bought this quilt. The molding came up to about waist-height and was white, but the rest of the walls were black. While very elegant, it had left me feeling the need for some more color in my apartment. Isabel and I spent many evenings snuggling under it while I read or watched TV. When Steven brought it upstairs she immediately jumped into it and curled up for awhile.

Steven has his Kung Foo t-shirt back. Izzie hasn't discovered this yet, but I know when she does she'll be happy. She stole this shirt from Steven when he visited, then made a nest for herself with it after he left. She's a very clever and determined cat who had a very clear message for me.

I have my dishes and a whole box full of kitchen stuff that we really don't have room for back. I know that we don't have room for it, and that makes me sad because I'll have to get rid of some of it, but there were a few things that I was looking forward to get back. My garlic squisher-thingy for instance... It was indispensable to me when I cooked by myself and how I managed to make it down to California without one is beyond me. I know I could have gotten it replaced, but still... I also found all my knives. I have some "family heirloom" kitchen knives that I hated leaving in storage.

I think I have some other "home" things too, but it's late and I don't actually feel the need to catalog it all. I'm just happy to have more of my things here. Especially since so much of the trip to WA ended up being highly emotional--it's always hard going back to a place that used to be "home" and discovering that it's really not anymore. Even Olympia, which was very much my first taste of what being truly "at home" was like, didn't seem very "homey" to me anymore. To really drive it all home for me (see how I play with the words? hehe) I found a copy of the sermon that I gave as a part of a young adults group that I was a part of at the UU church in town precisely on that topic. Re-reading it, I am still quite proud of it as my first (and probably only) sermon--it was really very well-written and I never say that about my own writing. Not perfect, of course--there are some structural changes I'd make still, but it was really very good.

There many other things that happened that I can and will write about later, nearly all of them dealing with more detail about how the week went, how the family is, how the friends are, etc., but I think for the night it's appropriate to leave this alone as it is--a written-down celebration of being home again.