in a forest

i arrived yesterday in seattle with p. i met up with my sister j. and her family at the airport. although we talk at least weekly if not daily, i haven't seen her in person in three or four years. she is the person i'm closest to in my family, and as i don't have a particularly close family this makes our relationship even more precious to me. there have been times we haven't gotten along in the (distant) past and we don't agree on all things (thankfully, how boring would that be? =). that doesn't change that we're each other's closest blood relatives, not counting our children of course (she has four, one of whom is already an adult and living on her own, one that is soon to graduate from school and two who are around p's age).

we drove out to their house yesterday, and on that drive i discovered that they live out in the forest. we drove through a small town outside of seattle and then through an even more rural area for a few minutes before turning off onto a dirt road that snakes between the trees.

it's so quiet here. they have a nice rancher with four bedrooms, a couple of baths and a a set of large common rooms.

last night, my first night here, i kept having these very involved dreams about various things in my life. it's like my springs inside were starting to uncoil and relax, and in doing so they moved the machinery in my mind round and round all night. i woke up three times. i feel pretty rested, all the same. i think the next two weeks will be quite good for me as well as p. it'll be great to reconnect with my sis again, too.

i'll only be working half days while i'm out here, and probably even less on the two weekends i'm here. i have my list of things that i must get done (finish the background drawing code for plasma (which is shaping up to be pretty neat, i think), finish off a riff of michael olbrich's patch for sync'ing/sharing/defining timers per-source in engines, do up a linuxMCE article for theDot with some news related to the release and some product availability, writing a follow up blog on tracker/strigi after reading some more on the topic ...). i have given myself the permission not to do more than half days, though. which feels ... very liberating.

(p.s. to t.: there are few things in this world as nice as hearing your voice, even when it's a whisper on the 'net during my travels. thank you; hugs 'n love.)