First off, we made it to the desert. My toes are freed from socks and other confining clothing, the palm trees are lovely and Boisie State beat OSU to win the Fiesta Bowl across town. All is well…

Now we are at the Holiday Inn that will be our home for the next two weeks. It is acceptable, as it has both a king-sized bed and a refrigerator. As a bonus feature, it has a balcony that overlooks the dumpster -- and an orange tree... My plan for tomorrow is a morning in the library and then a bit of grocery shopping and reading by the pool in the afternoon. If all goes well, I’ll reward myself with a nap.

As usual, I have a few secret notes to those I met while flying here:

To the officious woman in the security line: Shoving hubby was not cool and then snorting, “you have a laptop” did NOT justify your barging in front of him. Acting as if a laptop is somehow contraband or foreign to an airport shows what a nasty Red State hick you are. FYI, you were in no hurry to catch that flight. I saw you sit there for 90 minutes before they called your boarding group. Don’t be such a nasty piece of work on the way home.

To the guy sitting next to me from Omaha to Denver: I could smell your New Year’s celebration – you didn’t have to tell me you were still a bit drunk. I hope you have a safe flight to LA and that your hangovers aren’t the barfing kind. Also, your response to what I do for a living is the 2nd most common response… many people tell me, “I didn’t do well in Philosophy, so I stopped taking it”.. duh, it is hard and most people don’t get it.

To the couple sitting in front of me and hubby: Dude, you are short, you don’t need to recline your seat all the way back into hubby’s space. Girl, I’m going to pretend for the sake of both of our dignity and sanity that you weren’t joining the Mile High Club 6 inches in front of me with that scummy, white-supremicist-looking, tattoo wearing dude that had his head nearly in hubby’s lap. We’ll pretend it is innocent cuddling…. Really, it is better that way.

To all of my regular travelers who are also my readers: – take my word for it, you really don’t want to fly on New Year’s day – the people are both inexperienced AND hung-over.

To D1 (whom I didn’t see, but who has a strong objection to children on leashes..): Children should be on leashes in airports. Way too many kids were prime for the snatching at DIA.

To the nice young man from Maui: Thanks for the funny, I’m passing it on – It seems that yesterday he was behind two gentlemen from London in the supermarket checkout lane near where he is living in Colorado. The check-out girl asks to see their ID, then says, “You live in London, you must speak French.” The gentlemen say “no, we speak English”, to which she replies, “Isn’t London in Paris?”.