|
I always love having company. I have an old friend who came to stay just under a week with her two kids, who are roughly the same age as my own. The King, in Europe, was pining away for the chaos, no doubt. I met Karen when she came to Jordan en route to Syria in 1988. I lived in Jordan that year (which otherwise would have been my junior year of college) and worked as a volunteer at the Young Women's Muslim Association School for Special Education. Karen was one of half a dozen chosen to participate in a dig way out in the Syrian boondocks that spring. They stayed with us in our apartment to get acclimated and we took them on all the tours in Jordan (most of which we had already seen a million times by then). The sites may have been stale, but boy, were we glad to see some different (fresh!) Americans from the small group that served together with me. It was like a whole season of Survivor, only without the blessed ability to vote any of them off the "island" -- ever. Later, when her dig was complete and my stint in Jordan was over, we both went on a 3-week educational tour of Israel. We went on to graduate from college in the same class of 1989. Our husbands being friends, we later were both in the large group of alumni in Pasadena, California, to participate in the weekly Tuesday night gatherings (gathering = Happy Hour
This is Stephen, QueenoftheHill, and Oldest Son in March of 1997. What I realized on this visit from my friend is how different we are. Karen is in constant motion. I'm more or less in constant, um, attempts to make no motion. I value my rocking-on-the-porch time and my weekly appointment with "Lost" and my long immobility whilst checking my email and reading the paper and drinking my coffee. When did I get to BE such a stick in the mud? Did it sneak up on me overnight like the cottage cheese on my thighs or the love handles or the droopy unmentionables? Or has it always been there, just under the surface? I remember, with rising terror, my grandmother's joke that she was getting her exercise while watching "her stories" on TV -- her exercise? Why, she twiddled her thumbs when she wasn't crocheting -- something she did very well, but without much of an imagination. Let's just say that her color schemes were somewhat Tijuana-esque. And let's just say Grandma didn't shop in the Petite section of the store either. Karen left this morning -- excruciatingly early, appropriately enough. My normal days start at the crack of 9 or 9:30. These people were bored out of their minds by the time I arose each day and their bodily clocks were 2 hours behind, thanks to jet lag!! I felt very guilty and somehow managed to both feel guilty and be in a sleep deficit at the same time! (Let's face it: Baby is a party animal! No grass grows under his tiny feet, either.) And when I returned to the quiet of home after dropping them at the airport, it sure seemed EXTRA quiet. And I sighed...
|
). Our first children were born a mere 2 months apart and Stephen was Oldest Son's very first teeny visitor at the hospital. We later took turns babysitting each others baby to give one another a morning off.
Comments