totally OT -- there and back again

In the immortal words of Simon and Garfunkel, "gee but it's great to be back home -- home is where I want to be..."

The last three weeks have been very hectic, active, and cold (okay, like nearly freezing); starting out in Seattle where my family lives, going up to Alaska for a while and back to Florida last night.  Talking about extremes, Alaska looked like this:

on Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, flown in by helicopter

and right now my Florida back yard looks like this:

and, where Alaska was freezing, it's actually steamy humid outside right now. 

It was a great vacation (which included, among other things, dry suit snorkeling off the Alaskan coast -- extremely cool), and now that I'm home, I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation.  But I did manage to read a fair number of books while away, including

• Gillespie and I by Jane Harris 
• A Summer of Drowning, by John Burnside
• Bring up the Bodies, by Hilary Mantel
• The Headmaster's Wager, by Vincent Lam
• A Florentine Death, by Michele Guttari
• Hour of the Wolf, by Hakan Nesser
• Liar Moon, by Ben Pastor

and I don't remember what else, actually, but reviews will be forthcoming soon. In the meantime, I need sleep and sun and I'll be right as rain by tomorrow.

So that's it -- it's just so good to be home!