Out for a walk Monday night, I passed a neighbor walking her dog in the opposite direction. She didn’t have to say a word. I had some explaining to do.

What would seem normal to strangers must have looked suspect to anyone who’s seen me out walking for years.

Unless there’s another kid home baby-sitting, I usually have a child with me, on foot, on a bike or skateboard. This week, for the first time since 1983 – seriously, ‘83 – I have no children at home. Not one.

“He’s at camp,” I said cheerily, but also a bit defensively. Who needs neighbors thinking I’d leave an 8-year-old home alone? “For a whole week,” I added.

Not only is my youngest at camp, my college son is on tour with his band. Today, his itinerary has him in a van with a half-dozen other rockabilly guys someplace between Monterey, Calif., and Las Vegas.

I worry so much about them, there’s little mental energy left to ponder potential dangers as my wild third-grader learns about archery and communal campfires.

My grown daughter lives in Seattle, although this summer she works in Snohomish County. We’ll meet for dinner this week – Thai food, no kids, like actual grownups.

I’ve had my short-lived freedom marked on a calendar for weeks. A temporarily empty nest, what could be better? After 24 years of child-raising, it turns out that habits die hard.

After work Monday, I could have gone casino gambling. I could have seen “A Mighty Heart” or some other movie not meant for kids. Instead, I did what I always do – cooked dinner, watered my tomato plants and walked the dog.

I dropped my boy at his camp near Carnation on Sunday. I’ll retrieve him Saturday morning. At check-in, it was amusing to eavesdrop on other parents as they debated how they’d spend their time. Beyond dinners and movies, the most mentioned pastime was nothing exotic – it was sleep. With a child who’s an early riser, it made perfect sense to me.

I didn’t hear a thing to compare with suggestions writer Lisa Grunwald offers in New York magazine’s Summer Guide. In an article with the headline “Exploit the empty nest,” Grunwald writes about a phenomenon of well-heeled parents on the East Coast, “seven and a half weeks without your children.”

Here in the Northwest, even those who could afford it don’t generally send little kids to camp for seven weeks.

Grunwald, whose father Henry Grunwald was once U.S. ambassador to Austria, has high expectations of kid-free time. She urges readers to drink martinis at a spot called Cafe de Bruxelles, and to attend a Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Also a novelist, her latest book is “Whatever Makes You Happy.” The plot finds a New York mom, with her kids away at camp, having a torrid fling with a famous artist.

That reminds me – famous art. Sunday, after the camp drop-off, I was driving through Bellevue and decided to check out the Martin Lawrence Gallery. Last week, the Bellevue Square gallery was the scene of a Hollywood-worthy art heist.

According to news reports, security camera footage showed a woman distracting a gallery worker while two men walked out with two original etchings by Pablo Picasso. The etchings were valued at $92,000.

On Sunday, I saw more pieces by Picasso, as well as signed prints and other works by Marc Chagall, Joan Miro, Andy Warhol and other masters hanging in the Bellevue gallery. I took in (but didn’t take) the art, then went swimming in Lake Washington.

Freedom from children is great, for a little while. An empty nest? No thanks, not yet. I miss those guys.

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.