It's been a long time since I posted anything here.
Leaving my granddaughter was not easy.
I can no longer remember the feel of her weight in my arms.
I remember, though, the soft silkiness of her hair beneath my chin,
and the feel of her when I massaged her in the sunshine.
Her face is the face in the photographs we keep looking at,
not the face I saw for five weeks, growing and changing:
just starting to smile by the time we left her....
We spent a few enjoyable days in Atlanta with family, which was a good transition for us.
We also met our nephew's four month old baby, who seemed huge in comparison with our little grandchild! It was a wonderful time of talking, often late into the night, walking, shopping and eating delicious meals, driving through miles and miles of greenery...
Our connecting flight from Frankfurt got delayed by a couple of hours, after we had boarded.
We did inform the kids who were going to receive us later that night.
We finally disembarked, finished with our duty-free shopping, and reached the baggage carousel.
Two of our bags appeared and we grabbed them. The third one looked just like our brown suitcase, but had a huge white label stuck onto it. We waited till all the luggage was unloaded, and realised that no one was claiming the brown-suitcase-with-the white-label. The baggage handlers were sympathetic, and the spouse spied a mobile telephone number on the white label. The person was duly called, and said that she would come back to the airport and meet us at a particular exit gate. We still had to go through Customs. Now, although we were both sure that there had been a genuine mix-up and the labelled brown suitcase didn't contain contraband, there was no way we were going to take that suitcase through the Green Channel. One of the baggage handling staff accompanied us (so that they could accompany the errant passenger back into the airport), we went out and met our children, and finally acquired our own brown suitcase. The young lady's father was most apologetic. We were quite amused, because in all these years we have never pasted A-4 sized labels or any labels on our luggage, have been able to identify it correctly, and always check the airline tag to make sure that it is ours. (We felt very very sorry for our son who had to go to work after sleeping at around five a.m, thanks to this additional delay of around one and a half hours or so). The kids, of course, had got our flat cleaned, with fresh bed linen and food in the fridge. It was good to be home. Since our time zones were so mixed up, the two of us were too hungry to sleep, so we feasted on good old Maggi noodles, into which I tossed in a packet of the frozen stir-fried vegetables I had prepared for the spouse, in case of culinary emergencies in my absence.
Life is getting back to normal, slowly. Despite our best efforts, we succumbed to jet lag. The May heat is enervating. Unpacking happened, but slowly. The guest room bed is still piled with stuff.
There is progress, but we are not rushing anything. I'm looking forward to the day when I feel that my house is in order, knowing full well that such a day may never appear.
I think I'll settle for reasonable order, and try not to look behind the closet doors!
Leaving my granddaughter was not easy.
I can no longer remember the feel of her weight in my arms.
I remember, though, the soft silkiness of her hair beneath my chin,
and the feel of her when I massaged her in the sunshine.
Her face is the face in the photographs we keep looking at,
not the face I saw for five weeks, growing and changing:
just starting to smile by the time we left her....
We spent a few enjoyable days in Atlanta with family, which was a good transition for us.
We also met our nephew's four month old baby, who seemed huge in comparison with our little grandchild! It was a wonderful time of talking, often late into the night, walking, shopping and eating delicious meals, driving through miles and miles of greenery...
Our connecting flight from Frankfurt got delayed by a couple of hours, after we had boarded.
We did inform the kids who were going to receive us later that night.
We finally disembarked, finished with our duty-free shopping, and reached the baggage carousel.
Two of our bags appeared and we grabbed them. The third one looked just like our brown suitcase, but had a huge white label stuck onto it. We waited till all the luggage was unloaded, and realised that no one was claiming the brown-suitcase-with-the white-label. The baggage handlers were sympathetic, and the spouse spied a mobile telephone number on the white label. The person was duly called, and said that she would come back to the airport and meet us at a particular exit gate. We still had to go through Customs. Now, although we were both sure that there had been a genuine mix-up and the labelled brown suitcase didn't contain contraband, there was no way we were going to take that suitcase through the Green Channel. One of the baggage handling staff accompanied us (so that they could accompany the errant passenger back into the airport), we went out and met our children, and finally acquired our own brown suitcase. The young lady's father was most apologetic. We were quite amused, because in all these years we have never pasted A-4 sized labels or any labels on our luggage, have been able to identify it correctly, and always check the airline tag to make sure that it is ours. (We felt very very sorry for our son who had to go to work after sleeping at around five a.m, thanks to this additional delay of around one and a half hours or so). The kids, of course, had got our flat cleaned, with fresh bed linen and food in the fridge. It was good to be home. Since our time zones were so mixed up, the two of us were too hungry to sleep, so we feasted on good old Maggi noodles, into which I tossed in a packet of the frozen stir-fried vegetables I had prepared for the spouse, in case of culinary emergencies in my absence.
Life is getting back to normal, slowly. Despite our best efforts, we succumbed to jet lag. The May heat is enervating. Unpacking happened, but slowly. The guest room bed is still piled with stuff.
There is progress, but we are not rushing anything. I'm looking forward to the day when I feel that my house is in order, knowing full well that such a day may never appear.
I think I'll settle for reasonable order, and try not to look behind the closet doors!
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