Hey- I am going to Bangkok in two days- what do you guys have planned this week?
It’s not a big deal, you see I often just hop on a plane and fly halfway around the world WITHOUT my children. I am a jet setter like that, and us jet setters are really blase about taking 21 hour flights to hang out in a country where they have tsunamis and gun fights in the streets between anti-government protesters and police and where weaver ant eggs are considered a delicacy and giant water bugs in red curry sauce are served for dinner- oh and where my parents live.
The kids will be fine, their dad is going to be home 24/7 tending to their every need in much the same manner as I do.
This is their dad:
Oh God help us!
The truth is that I don’t really jet set anywhere, but of course you guys know that already. In fact, that pumpkin I carved last Saturday was the wildest thing I have done in a long time . I free handed with a very sharp electric pumpkin carver, so it really was pretty risky.
Also I am a nervous flyer.
Someone once told me that people who are afraid of flying are generally control freaks.
Which I am so not!
These oversized spread sheets were just something I whipped up to make things easier for John.
I know that everyone of you would do the exact same thing if you were about to get into a flying machine with 300 people who all have the H1N1 virus and will likely plunge into the Pacific Ocean just as we clear Alaska.
The good news is that my sister and I will be traveling together.
The bad news is that she is even more afraid of flying than I am.
She is also not particularly fond of our layover in Seoul, which she thinks is way too risky due to it’s proximity to North Korea. She pointed out that there is a whole list of ways our lives can be ruined or end, before we even get to Bangkok. For example what will we do if Korean Airlines runs out of gin and tonic 3 hours into the flight? or another major concern of hers (which now also has become mine)- besides, of course, the very real threat of being taken as a POW by Kim Jung il- is that someone might plant 60 lbs of cannabis in our rucksacks just as we board the plane in Dulles and we will get arrested in Thailand, where our particular case will be used as an example to deter other young free spirited backpackers from doing this sort of thing (except we are well into our 40′ies, uptight and carry purses). Whereafter we will be thrown into a hellish Turkish prison in Bangkok, where we will live for many years in a nightmare of unspeakable conditions before we go to trial and lose, despite Secretary Clinton’s efforts to negotiate with the Thai authorities.
So, no, I don’t think I am being too overbearing for making sure that my family knows what to do every hour on the hour, in my perhaps permanent absence. They will thank me one day for these past five evenings of power point presentations of who needs to have their butt wiped by dad one extra time for good measure and who has to return their library book on what day, as well as which day to clip fingernails and what soap to use on which child with the sensitive skin.
These are the faces that will keep me going as I am clinging to the life boat, resisting the urge to let the North Pacific Drift take me away into the cold November night.
Farewell my friends thank you for everything……
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