Category: Travels with Jessica

Jessica is hanging over my left shoulder. “Are you buying the tickets?” she asks. “The airline tickets to Italy.” “Mmm,” I say, not quite clicking “buy now.” I have checked the bank balance, and I have checked the dates, but the idea of dealing with luggage and trains and Jessica and I don’t speak the…

At home, Jessica sets the New York City book off to one side. “We must decide about Italy first,” she says, showing an excellent grasp of priority setting, and she opens the first book. A moment later, she announces, “There is a lot of Italy.” “Yes,” I agree. “It’s a big country. So maybe we should…

Jessica is running her finger along the spines of the travel books on the shelf at the bookstore. “Hong Kong,” she reads. “We are not going to Hong Kong.” “Nope.” “Indonesia. Not there, either.” “Nope.” “Italy.” She smiles, and starts lifting books off the shelf and loading them into my arms. “We don’t need all…

“We are going to Italy,” Jessica announces to her father on the phone. I have already discussed it with him, but apparently he makes suitable sounds of enthusiasm and excitement, because a smile spread across her face. “It is a good thing I already have a passport,” she adds, sounding very grown up and offhand…

We are getting on the plane to go home, our long weekend in DC over. Security is less obnoxious here than in Kansas City, and I suppose that’s because no one really expects the terrorists to head for the heartland. Jessica is being unusually attentive to me this morning. She got up when the alarm…

  “We should go to the Eastern Market today,” Jessica says as we stand on the sidewalk outside our hotel. Other people would have decided what they were going to do by now, but I have rather intensively planned three days of activities and now my brain is done. It is a beautiful Saturday morning,…