It is odd to be back at work after nine days off. Richard went back yesterday, but I didn't go back until today. And we all stumbled in yawning and bleary, and mostly wishing we could go back home and crawl back into bed and try again tomorrow when we might be more ready for it.

I'd heard there was some flooding around the office but I was completely unprepared to pull onto Garden Highway and see how high the Sacramento River has risen. There are a number of buildings that were built right on the levee, so that half of the building stands on poles and the parking is usually found underneath. Our office building is just such a building, and as I drove toward it I was amazed by the fact that the lower level parking for every single building along the levee was completely underwater. It looked as if the apartment buildings and office complexes and restaurants had all been built in the river itself. And it is disconcerting to walk across a wooden boardwalk and look down between the cracks in the boards and see nothing but water underneath, or to stand on the deck outside our office door and look down at water instead of a grassy bank. It is also more than a bit unnerving to look out the window to my left when sitting down at my desk and realize that the boats which docked right outside our office are practically at eye level, when normally they are down at the same level as the parking garage.

Richard was feeling a bit better, now that he's on a higher dose of Prednisone (the drug of choices for severe asthmatics with bronchitis!) and also giant horse pills of antibiotics, which he picked up and started on today. So we went out for sushi for dinner, and then came home and watched the last few episodes of the first season of Monk. Richard sat on the floor for part of it, assembling his telescope, and I muddled through directions I printed out this weekend, and managed to get three of the five fingers finished on the pair of half-finger gloves I'm making out of leftover sock yarn.

Things are sliding slowly back into normal, now that the holidays are over and vacation is done with and we are back to work as if nothing had ever changed. I like being home and having the time to putter around on little unimportant things, sleeping as late as I want and actually having time to cook if I can work up the enthusiasm and we have the ingredients in the house. But after a while I get to the point where I need to have something a little more to do. Even if it is just going in to work and marveling over the fact that the park across the river is so far under water that only the tip of the guard shack is visible, or pondering whether the water beneath the deck is deep enough that if we accidently fell in, it would break our fall.

Happy Holidailies