Travels.

Another from the Daily Update.

Well. I am back.

Yesterday was a day of sweeping adventure. I'm sure of that even if I
can't be that certain of anything else. We kept our eye lids up all
night on Saturday, into the hours just before dawn. Our taxi picked
Kami and myself up at Canvas at 3:30 AM. I was in a rush to move, and
she was sentimental and sad to go. I usually won't allow much emotion
when I leave places, especially when I know that I will be back. Even
when if I know the reality is that it is the last that I will see of
someone, I tend to keep on moving. Maybe that's a defense tactic. I
don't know. Either way, I was kind of a jerk as I tried to sweep Kami
out of the house and into the black cab. I apologized later.

We fished Jenn and her belongings out of the Braden house and then we
made our sweet way to the coach station. I made conversation with the
driver. Nice guy, but before we picked up Jenn, we had a bit of an
altercation. Kami and I were singing some silly song (as we are known
to do when we are in a car- anyone's car). We were singing softly,
mind you. None of that loud and obnoxious stuff that As and Tom know
so well. We would always need Kalyn for that. So we are just singing
our song and before we know it, the driver reaches for the radio. He
turns the radio up to drown out our pleasant, a-cappella tunes. He
could have slapped us each in the face and be more respectable, less
shameful.

We all tried to sleep our little hearts out on the bus. Jenn could
never find herself in a comfortable position. I was able to walk into
some sleep and then walk back out again, over and over again over the
2.5 hours. Kami is basically narcoleptic.

We arrive at the airport just before the Delta counters are opened at
7AM. Kami has a ticket, so she checks her bags and receives her
freshly printed boarding pass. Jenn and I, with our buddy passes and
standby status, are not so fortunate. "It looks full", we are told.
So we skip downstairs and enjoyed an overpriced English breakfast and
we talked about the things that concern our little lives in America,
in England, in Mexico.

We came back at 10 and the flight was scheduled to sprint down the
runway at 10:55. Finally, they call us to carry on through security
and to the gate where Jenn and I were awarded our boarding passes,
seats 1A and 1B. That's first class, friends. Poor Kami was in 38B.
I went back to visit her once, but I did not want to talk about the
meals, the drinks, the gloriousness of it all in our little hotel so
high in the sky. We all slept a lot. Jenn watched a movie and tore
through the final 150 pages of "The Hotel New Hampshire." As a side
note, let it be known that John Irving's books are dysfunctional to
some level, but none of them are quite as disturbing, as down right
unsettling in their disfunction as this novel from 1980. Even still,
the language and story is fantastic.

I finally made it through my taxi/bus/plane/train/car ride to the
Fortunato's house in Peachtree City. I delivered something like 15
packs of Jacob's tea crackers to Frank Fortunato and I called it a
night.

It's good to be back, but my heart is to be over there. Let's hope
that we finish this last leg in something that resembles light-speed.