Semi-Live Homecoming Blog

1:07 pm: His plane has landed! They are at the gate, or probably still taxiing. I should be getting a call from him in about thirty minutes to say he's got his luggage (or Paris lost it AGAIN) and is on his way to get a cab. I need to say a big thank you to Delta and all the other first-world airlines, which allow you to get instant information about their flights online. You can't do that if you're flying, say, Air Nigeria (which the King has). I've got to go try to make myself look halfway presentable, although given my negligible skill with a curling iron, I'm not sure that's going to be possible.

10:48 am, 2/1: His flight left 18 minutes late from Paris this morning, but they're scheduled to arrive one minute early, which means I have just over two hours until he lands. I managed to get to the store and get roses, a balloon, and beer (and some sleeping pills to help with the crazy time change), which took FOREVER. Can I say something totally un-PC? I love it that developmentally disabled people are able to get jobs nowadays and have full, satisfying lives. They deserve it. But when I am in a hurry at the grocery store and there is only ONE checker, that one checker should be able to move at full speed. It should not take TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES to check out the one person in line ahead of me. I'm not kidding. Okay, now I must go change the sheets and dig my makeup out of the back of the medicine cabinet. Ooh, and vacuum. Shit.

7:44 am, 2/1: It's today! It's today! Presuming he didn't somehow get lost in De Gaulle airport (which is certainly possible; that place is a nightmare), the King should now be in the air over Spain, or possibly the Atlantic Ocean, on his way home. I'm already taken a shower and shaved my legs (and other unmentionable places [oops, I mentioned them!]). Now I've got seven hours to get to the store and buy beer and flowers, vacuum the house one more time, finish a freelancing job I've got going on, and, um, oh yeah, work. Because I was lame and didn't take the day off, thinking "Oh, he's not getting home until 3 pm, that's plenty of time to work in the morning!" Which is why I spent last night proofreading instead of watching nine reruns of Friends.

5:35 pm, EST, 2/1: He's on his way! I just got an e-mail from the King, and he is no longer in Afganistan. According to Delta's website, he is currently winging his way over the Middle East on the way to Paris, seven minutes ahead of schedule. I cannot even tell you how stupid I looked doing a little happy dance in front of my computer just now. Leaving Afganistan is the worst part of the trip. There are no commercial airlines allowed to fly there, so he had to take a UN transport, and there is the whole shooting-down-planes-with-shoulder-launched-missiles thing to worry about. So I'm very, very happy that part is over, and per the previous post, I was totally serious about the drunken hot wing eating. Because we're just classy like that.