What's for dinner

Doodles tucks in for the night

Those crack-of dawn-flights are pretty unpleasant, but mine went well yesterday. As we were hanging around sleep deprived and cranky in the departure area this morning, a nice Alaska Airlines girl came around with a cart offering free water and cookies, like a flight attendant working the ground.

At the check-in kiosk, I scored a window seat near the front of the plane (maybe that Alaska credit card is paying off) and sat next to a couple who chatted quietly and politely the entire flight, hanging on each others words.  Obviously they were not married.  So I looked out the window for two hours, and goodness, the West is a snowy, wet and beautiful place right now.

And I love flying with "lady pilots," as our mother called them. They had to work twice as hard as men to get where they are.  Captain Jennifer brought us down neatly through the typical turbulence in Las Vegas. 

We also flew in one of my favorite Boeing planes (John can tell you what number) that has that nice blue mood lighting along the ceiling.

The desert is windy and rough today. It is too cold to sit outside, but I stepped out on the patio long enough to see a hawk almost snatch a dove from the ground feeder my sister has set out. It was over in a flash, the dove escaped.

The predator was either a Cooper Hawk or a Sharp-Shinned, a species so similar it stumps experienced bird watchers.

They look like a big raptors, but they are only as large as a Seattle crows. And very fast...
This is a video of a Cooper's Hawk someone took in Las Vegas, where they are year round residents. 



It is nice being here again in Marji's comfortable home.



Dad and I went to the grocery store, and he put in a request for pork and sauerkraut. I never get to make sauerkraut because John won't touch it, so I jumped on that idea. It simmered all afternoon and we made mashed potatoes and fresh asparagus.  Yummy supper on a cold desert night.