I'm exhausted.

I'm back in Boston. I came in last night on a fifty-seat commuter shuttle. Boston was shrouded in a dense, nearly opaque fog; I could barely see the runway until we touched down. But the pilot was a master, and he brought us in so gently that a teacup on a tray would barely have rattled. I was impressed.

My cabbie for the ride home looked like Hunter Thompson's long-lost twin. He had a gruff attitude until he realized that I wasn't a tourist. After that, he called me a shaineh maidel (pretty girl) and knocked the usual toll charges off the meter. "Because of your looks," he explained. Oh.

Hunter spent the rest of the ride asking questions, calling me princess, and telling me that he wanted to bring me fresh challah and roses. Occasionally, he drifted off the subject to voice his support for the war against Iraq, then looked in his rear-view mirror and went back to talking about me.

When he pulled up outside my building, he said, "Can you get that suitcase? I got a bad hip." No problem. Just let me out of this cab.

As I counted out the fare in the back seat, a black man, maybe my age, approached and asked for a ride. "Can't do it," Hunter said. "I got a radio call." As the man walked away, Hunter grunted irritably and said, "I don't pick up shvartzen. Probably going to buy drugs."

I refrained from calling him an asshole because I was desperately tired. I just paid my fare and got the hell out of the cab. I was enormously tempted to write BIGOT on the back of his cab with my apartment key, but I settled on slamming the trunk. Karma will get him eventually.

Cricket met me at the door. I dropped everything and scooped her up. We had some serious snuggle time, then I gave her fresh food and water.

My heart is torn; I want to be in DC, caring for my mother. But God, I'm so grateful to be home.