After a long, tough spring, there is nothing like a two-week vacation to lift the spirits.

We had been looking forward to this trip for months. My friend, Julia, was getting married in Chicago, I was to be part of the wedding party, and we were using the occasion to squeeze a vacation out of our tired schedules. Although it always feels like a marathon to get to the actual vacation itself, this time it felt worse than ever. I was living on fumes after about six weeks with no days off and Matt was in no better shape. In the days before we left, we hosted a visiting musician who did workshops with Matt's choir and gave a concert. I played a recital and taught group lessons, cooked and cleaned house for a Saturday night dinner party, threw a breakfast for thirty piano teachers, and taught three days of lessons in two days. All this, and then we left the house at 6:00AM for the airport.

Traveling is never simple. Because I was connecting the trip to Chicago with a jaunt to St. Louis to visit my family, I was flying on Southwest standby passes. Matt and I have always had good luck with flying standby–once, we even flew standby on a direct flight from Dallas to Boston on the day before Thanksgiving. Clearly, the standby gods loved us.

Those were the days, my friend. Apparently the era of easy standby flying is a thing of the past. With airlines in crisis, no one flies empty planes anymore, and a non-revenue standby pass is an airline's last priority. We had an inkling when going to the airport that morning that my flight was dicey (Matt had a secure ticket on American Airlines, so no worries for him), but I was confident in my history as a standby passenger. However, at the ticket counter, the agent wasn't even hopefully optimistic about my chances–"The flight is full and there are ten people on the standby list ahead of you," she said. This was two hours before we were scheduled to take off. "However," she continued, "if you can get through security in the next ten minutes there is a plane leaving for Houston and from Houston you would have many more options to Chicago."

So off we ran, I barely reaching the gate before they closed the airplane doors. In spite of my hurry and the early hour, I was conscious enough to notice that this was not a direct flight to Houston, but that instead we were first headed to Dallas. "Don't worry," the kind woman at the gate assured me, "you'll get to Houston OK." She handed me a printout of my now only theoretical itinerary: Houston then Chicago (ignoring the Dallas leg entirely.) "Good luck," she said as she pushed me down the ramp.

The flight to Dallas was uneventful; I caught up on about a dozen old New Yorkers and at the airport didn't even have to leave the plane. We were late leaving Dallas, something about a problem with the air-traffic controllers (why after 9/11 do such words put the fear of God in me?), and it was sitting on the runway at Love Field that the full implications of theses various legs to Chicago hit me: there was plenty of potential to miss flights–especially as I didn't have a seat on any of them.

Landing in Houston about 30 minutes late, I hit the ground running (with all my luggage and wedding finery–I couldn't check luggage as a standby passenger, and there was no time to organize my bags with Matt back in Albuquerque.). My gate was down the farthest terminal in little Houston Hobby airport and I was out of breath when I reached the gate. However, I immediately took note of the fact that this flight was first going to St. Louis. Another leg! This couldn't be happening. The woman at the gate gave me my boarding pass and commented, "You're looking pretty good almost all the way to Chicago." The key word in that sentence was "almost".

Sure enough, in St. Louis the plane emptied except for the handful of us continuing to Chicago. The attendants took a count of the remaining passengers and I could hear them starting to mutter among themselves, "There are six. There should be only five." At this point, I headed to the bathroom, hoping to hide, but they were waiting, "Are you Amy? You have to get off the flight. It's overbooked, but we can get you on the next flight to Chicago." My little old lady seatmate was appalled at this scene. "They can't do that, can they? What did you do?"

Fortunately, I did get on the next flight to Chicago, which left an hour and half later, and I arrived in Chicago some ten hours, five airports, and four cities after leaving the house that morning. Matt had carefully given me directions about how to take the train into the city to our hotel, but by then I was too exhausted even to try. I grabbed the first cab (which ended up being a good thing as Chicago was in the middle of a rain/hail storm and Matt's plans had included a half-mile walk from the train station to the hotel.) I have never seen such a happy man as when I knocked on the door of our hotel room. "You're here." Matt said, "I was afraid I would never see you again."

Although a strange beginning to a much needed vacation, all that travel time gave me some much needed rest and downtime (albeit interspersed with mad dashes through various airports along the way). Dumping my luggage in the room, I was ready to go play and make up for the lost hours. We ducked in the nearest pharmacy to buy an umbrella, and then went walking. Our hotel was on the Gold Coast, just north of Miracle Mile (so named, I am sure, for the number of fantastic shoe-buying possibilities). We stopped at a seafood bar for drinks, oysters, and seafood chowder, and jumping over puddles made our way down Michigan Avenue. Chicago was cold, but oh! It was good to be in a city again. I missed Boston more acutely that night than I had for some time.

The next few days were filled with shopping, roaming the neighborhoods, eating well, and wedding events. The wedding was in Evanston at the chapel at Northwestern, so the next day we made our way up to Evanston with all our belongings to check into the hotel and begin the wedding festivities. Our days were chock-full: I attended the bachelorette party; Matt went to hear a lecture by John Adams on his opera "Nixon in China" (John Adams was staying in our hotel!) and then heard the Chicago Symphony and Chorus do Bach's Magnificant and Mozart's Requiem. There was a bridal luncheon, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, and of course, the wedding itself: hours of pictures, reception, dinner and dancing. I have a theory that weddings often bring out the worst in people, but I was happily proven wrong in this case. Julia, who is a dear friend and one of the most generous and gracious people I know, had a perfect wedding: wonderful people, great food, and the grace to care about each of us more than any mundane detail of the occasion. It's a nice surprise to love someone more after her wedding than you did before.

With the wedding hoopla behind us, we were free to enjoy two more days in the city–more shopping, a couple of great meals with a friend, the Art Institute, "Nixon in China," and the comedy act "Second City." In a lifetime of many fabulous trips together, it was another one for the books.

Tuesday, Matt got on a plane back home to New Mexico and I boarded the train to St. Louis to spend the rest of the week with my momma. Dad is spending the summer in Europe–doesn't that sound glamorous? And it is really. He was the recipient of a Lilly Foundation Grant, whose stipulation for granting money simply is to find something that would make "your heart sing." Dad decided his heart would sing by traveling Europe for the summer and so there he is. (He is keeping a blog of his adventures: www.faithandempire.com) Momma will join him in London for five weeks beginning July 1, but until then, she is holding down the fort back in Missouri. It had been years since I had spent more than a day or two in St. Louis, and it was a gift to have the empty time together. Not that it stayed empty for long. I spent one overnight with my best friend, Lisa, in Columbia–and there were visits with my grandmother, a room to paint, and a Dale Chihuly glass exhibit in the botanical gardens to see to otherwise fill our hours. My return trip home to Albuquerque was uncertain–remember I had standby tickets, and as it turns out, this was Memorial Day weekend, perhaps not the easiest time to travel even under the best of circumstances. On Saturday night, Matt began checking on flights for me and calling every few minutes with the update. It wasn't good. All flights were nearly sold out for days to come. The nice computerized voice rated my chances of getting on a flight to New Mexico as "poor." I had already seen "poor": poor meant five different airports and any number of potential problems along the way. After much discussion, we decided that I would cut my trip short and try to get on the Sunday flight–feeling like the chances might be slightly better than on Monday or Tuesday.

Momma was hoping I wouldn't get on my flight; Matt, back at home in charge of the cats and the plants, was hoping against hope I'd make my flight; I was torn–sad to cut short my time with Momma, but eager, after ten days to be home. Somehow, on a sold-out flight on a holiday weekend, I wiggled my way on a non-stop flight to Albuquerque, ending any chances of more standby adventures for this trip.

It was good to be home–especially since I felt like I had stolen days ahead of me when no one expected me to be there. I don't have to return phone calls or emails until at least Tuesday I reasoned, since no one knew I was back. While it was good to be home, home was not a particular good place to be. Matt had warned me that things were in his words, "kinda dirty." Like the airline employee who said things looked good "almost" all the way to Chicago, I should have heeded that language a little more mindfully. In my absence, there had been a windstorm for the record books. We lost part of our big elm tree in the front yard, and the house was covered in a layer of dust and dirt, leaves and seeds that had blown in through our windows (which, in their charming 75-year-old state, lack screens.) To make a bad situation worse, while I was playing in St. Louis, we had a sump pump put in our basement, which required digging a four-foot hole through cement and dirt. Everything in the basement: winter clothes, pots and pans, music, laundry, and so on, was completely covered in cement dust and dirt. The cats were no longer their sweet colors, having rolled around in this mess for days. I walked in the house and swore I couldn't even inhale for the dust. "What do you want to do tonight?" Matt asked me cheerfully. Men! As if there was anything I could do besides start to frantically clean.

It took a week of scrubbing to restore the house to its former condition, but tonight, I can finally breathe again. There are some things I haven't touched yet–all the winter clothes have to be laundered, my boots cleaned for storage again, and the piles of music will have to be wiped off if I am to see the notes–but it's a livable house once more. Thursday I started what looks to be a daunting summer teaching schedule–where all these students are going to fit in the fall I have no idea–and even though when we left for Chicago I thought I could never be excited about a day of teaching again, it's amazing what two weeks off will do. The kids were excited to be back and I began lessons with a just-turned four-year old, Anna. Strange to remember that the original Yun-Sun was a four-year-old budding pianist in Boston. "Do you know which is your right hand?" I asked my newest student. "Nope," Anna replied, with the clear message that she didn't much care, either. Ah, we both have some learning to do.

Matt leaves in two weeks with 40 youth and 13 sponsors for a music and mission trip to New Orleans. Hurricane season began last week. My adventures will be close to home this summer–teaching, preparing for some recitals, gardening, writing, and catching up on piles of books I want to read. Yesterday, we were given a new couch by a wealthy adult student of mine (yes, the same one that calls me ten times a day when he wants something.). He and his wife are moving and this couch was homeless, until we took it in. I have no shame in accepting second-hand furniture, but cats were immediately onto the fact that this couch was owned by another cat! They spent the afternoon sniffing the cushions with what could only be described as snarls on their faces. Today we are doing better with the new acquisition, having spent most of the afternoon taking a nap together on the couch. Soon, I have promised the girls, it will smell only of us. Already it is hot, hot, hot, our ancient swamp cooler struggling against the heat, but the nights here remind me that I could grow to love summer in this place–cool and delightful, already we have shared many a drink and good food in our backyard with friends. A whole summer ahead and no real plans–it's good to be home.