Home Sweet Home by Annette Dashofy

Like most of us, I holed up all of 2020 and most of 2021. This year was the year everything was going to get back to normal. Don’t laugh. We all thought it would or at least hoped it would. 

Fully vaxxed, the mystery writing community gathered in Bethesda in April for Malice Domestic. There were smiles and hugs galore. 

And then a bunch of attendees came home with Covid. I was relieved that I was not among them. 

A few weeks later, my Pennwriters family gathered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for our annual conference. There were still smiles and hugs, but we were all a little (a lot) more cautious. Again, there were cases of Covid that showed up the following week. 

There have been other conferences and conventions across the country this summer. I’ve given quite a few talks and been on some panels closer to home. And then two weekends ago, I did something I haven’t done since late 2019. 

I boarded a plane. 

Sleuthfest in southern Florida was fun with more smiles and hugs. 

Florida!

I shared a room with fellow Writers Who Kill blogger, Martha Reed. 

Martha and Annette 
AKA Thelma and Louise

We joined several of our crime writer pals and had dinner with Jeffery Deaver. (Yes, THE Jeffery Deaver! Why did I not get a picture???) There were panels and workshops and book signings for two solid days. 

Hanging out with Micki Browning

And Bruce Coffin

It was a blast. Except for the air travel. 

Seriously, though, I can’t complain (much). My flights from Pittsburgh to Fort Lauderdale were smooth sailing. On time. No problems making connections. 

They did not lose my luggage. 

I breathed a sigh of relief. 

My trip home on Sunday fell on my birthday. The TSA woman who checked me in wished me a happy one. The first leg from Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia went smoothly. But then, a less than one-hour flight from home, the snags hit. My flight to Pittsburgh was delayed. No biggie. I found my gate and a nearby eatery, bought a pizza, and sat down to browse Facebook while enjoying my dinner. 

Facebook had frozen my account. On my birthday. Because someone had pretended to be me a month ago. They offered hoops I could jump through to reclaim my account. I was sitting in an airport, using their wifi. No way was I going to reset passwords on an insecure network, even though I was using my VPN. 

So I waited for two hours, feeling grumpy and not very celebratory, for my flight home. 

In hindsight, it wasn’t awful. Only two hours. It was the final leg of my trip home, so it wasn’t like I was going to miss a connection. And in the worst-case scenario, I could’ve rented a car in the morning and driven home. (On the PA Turnpike? No, thank you. I’d rather fly.)

 But I made it home that evening. They didn’t lose my luggage. I reclaimed my Facebook profile the next morning. 

And I didn’t catch Covid. 

Home Sweet Home. 

Happy to be home with Kensi Kitty

Have you ventured onto a plane since the shutdown? How did it go? Or are you still staying home and waiting it out?