Back in WA!

Greetings,
I'm home safe in the beautiful state of Washington -- breathing clean, cool air and seeing a bunch of people I knew before the summer started.
Last Monday (Aug. 13), I saw "Casa Blanca" for the first time -- what a great movie: shootouts, romance, Africa, war, drunks, cheats and great music. Everything. It was playing outside at the mall in DC, and I had never put it all together that "casa blanca" is Spanish for "white house" until someone I was with pointed it out...
Tuesday I wrote and packed, and Wednesday I watched HBO and ate whatever food was left over before I moved out the next morning. Earlier that day I was buying gifts at a book store and ran into yet another Notre Dame lady who knows Adam Frisch. I swear everyone knows that guy. She only knows him in passing though. She majored in theology at ND and is doing her master's at the JPII Institute while her husband works in the USCCB Pro-life office.
Thursday was my travel day. I walked to the post office at around eleven to mail some books home and cut the weight of my baggage. Carrying two 45-lb. bags plus my carry-on, laptop and shoe-box of books, I had to stop at the end of every block and was drenched in sweat by the time I made the eight blocks. I didn't know a person could make himself that wet. Then a nice lady with two kids offered me a ride from there to the metro. Turns out she and her husband lived in Rome for four years, and she's going to JPII as well! Amazing the people you meet in DC; especially in Little Rome!
On my first flight -- to Chicago -- I sat next to a young woman who works as a naturalist in California. And she's been to NOME! Yeah, Christine said she went up there when she was in high school in Chicago on her way to do a service project on St. Lawrence Island.
So that made me feel a little more at home. Plus she was wearing Chacos and a canvas skirt, no makeup, dirty hair and carrying a guitar. With all that, I'm kind of surprised she didn't tell me she was FROM Bellingham. But she does have friends there, she said. Nobody I knew.
In Chicago I walked around outside Midway International airport. Then on my next flight I sat next to a clarinet player/teacher from Seattle named Bill. His wife is the principal librarian for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. I told him how I'd been meaning to learn to play, but now it will probably be a while before I get a chance.
Then I got into Seatac, spent two days, two nights with friends Jana and Jenn and the Carmack family in Tacoma, went to see the Mariners at Safeco (on a scalped ticket, no less!), ate Thai food at the "Thai-ger room" in the U District and saw UW's campus. Kind of ashamed I've never been there before, but it's nice.
On Saturday I met Dad at the airport to pick up Mom who was flying in from Mexico after almost a month and we made it north up to Mount Vernon and home.
I spent Saturday night, Sunday and most of Monday in Bellingham at my other home. Good times. I'm too out of shape to play softball, but I didn't know it at the time. I am not, however, too out of shape to play X-box 360 all day.
Now I'm back in MV throwing out all of my school work from high school, seminary and Western that I've just shoved in a drawer my whole life. This beautiful Washington weather has already given me a cold. My sore throat is gone, but I still have the sniffles.
All in all, not much going on. Thirty-one days until I leave for The Last Frontier.
Regards,
Buckenmeyer