Minneapolis, Minnesota

The trip home is now nearly over and I am currently running at about 39 hours without sleep. I think by the time I get home to Lincoln, I will have been up 42 straight hours without any sleep. I can see my haggard reflection in the glare of my laptop screen. I was having some trouble clearing my ears on the way down (again), so I was in a fair amount of distress and it wasn’t until I had a chance to eat at the airport here that I fully felt comfortable with the pressure in my ears. I might go find some of those earplugs for the last trip, since I can’t really take another hour of ear pressure.

Our flight here was short (we got here about 25 minutes ahead of schedule) but for whatever reason I spent half the trip worried about my table top, table legs, and mask (which I transferred into my roller carry-on in Atlanta so they wouldn’t give me trouble about having an extra bag) because the flight was full (every single flight I’ve been on for this return has been absolutely full, btw) and there wasn’t much luggage space in the overheads. I could just picture some idiot ramming their bag in over one of my purchases without bother to look to see what was there. But, so far as I know, everything is fine.

I still have another 2 hours or so here, so I have been listening to an audio book that Karlyn downloaded for me before I left – Dan Simmons’ latest novel “Drood”. I’ve actually be listening to it throughout most of this trip – but usually I fell asleep listening to it at night and would have to constantly scroll back and try to figure out what the last thing I remember hearing was. It’s a huge book, though, and the audio book is unabridged, so I’ve probably still got something like 40% of the book to get through. It sort of takes after his “Terror” novel – a historical fiction with enough history and factual people to really give a great historical context to another already interesting story.

Just now a lady came up to me and asked me if my table was a ‘mancala’ board and I was happy to explain to her that it is actually a “bowa’ board. She left exclaiming “that thing is sweet”. Maybe I should have shown here the table legs or my bad ass hippo carving. I guess when I get home I will lay out all my travel booty and take some photos so people can get a sense of what I bought. In the Blantyre airport, while we were waiting around, Meg had made friends with some fellow travelers and we were discussing the artistry for this table – they carve the legs out of a single piece of wood and the table top is double-sided mahogany. The tabletop by itself – if I could find someone to carve something similar in the US – would probably cost considerably more than the 26 dollars I paid for the whole table. But the legs – I don’t even know that someone in the US would even understand how to make something similar. The legs fit together a bit like a puzzle ring (with interlocking rings that were carved that way, not carved of separate pieces of wood) and when they are unfolded, they make a perfectly level stand for the tabletop. It’s definitely worth the hassle of carting this thing around.

I feel a bit weird wearing shorts here – it’s fairly cold in MN still. I didn’t really have a chance to dig out jeans, though, because I packed them all away in my checked luggage and I would have felt a bit weird unzipping that in the middle of the customs / bag recheck area in ATL. I suspect it won’t be much warmer in Lincoln, either, but after days and weeks of hot weather and blazing sun, the constant threat of sand fleas and mosquitoes and biting flies, I could use a week or two of cool weather, weak sunlight, and the only blinding light in my eyes stemming from a microscope.