Tuesday, October 21, 2008

He's Home and All Is Well ...

Last Friday at work, I noted when I looked out my window, that everything was still green. Here we were, halfway through October, and it looked like summer.

And then today?
Autumn happened. Just like that. *snaps fingers*.
When the sun lights up those trees, it's blindingly brilliant. I can't see my computer screen unless I put on my sunglasses.
Unfortunately I need those sunglasses to be on the top of my head, holding my bangs out of my eyes.
So I squint alot at work.
Drew asked if he could join me when I went to pick up Clint from the airport.
So I let him skip his two afternoon classes and come along because I'm desperate for him to like me. I'm not above buying his love.

It worked. He talked the whole way there with his ipod turned on and the buds in his ears. Which could be interpreted to mean that he could say whatever he wanted but he wasn't interested in hearing my response. Whatever. I'm needy. I'll take what I can get.

As we got closer to the airport, we could see the planes taking off. "I love travelling at night," he said. "It's the best. Like when we flew into Montreal? That was awesome. If you look up, there's stars. If you look out to the side, there's stars. Everywhere, there are stars. And then there's like a break in the clouds and you look down and you can see city lights and it was incredible. Don't you remember that?"

"I forgot that we flew at night. What time did we leave?"

"Uh, 4:00 in the afternoon. And we flew for, like, 5 hours. And then with the 3 hour time difference we got there at like, midnight. That was sweet. I love traveling at night."

"Yeah. That Montreal trip was good," I say.

"It was..." he agreed.

And my heart sang.

After we had parked the truck and while we were walking into the terminal, he said, "I can hardly wait. I'm going to love driving. Nico and I have it all planned out... he's going to drive his car, and I'm going to drive mine and we're going across Canada to Montreal."

"Montreal? You've already been there. Why Montreal?"

"Because it's awesome. We are going to go to all the places that we saw this summer. Like the Art Museum and stuff... And we're going to buy the absolute best digital SLR cameras we can afford and we're going to take such sweet pictures..."

I give him a quick side hug. "And you'll probably start a blog too, because sometimes you can't capture everything with your camera. Like your feelings and stuff."

"I AM NOT GOING TO WRITE ABOUT MY FEELINGS. I am not like Clint. I'm not going to write."

"Never say never. You might change your mind someday," I responded.

"The only thing I might write about are my wild adventures..."

These boys of mine might look their dad, but some of my blood flows through their veins.


Clint's plane was on time and we were a few minutes early, so we lunch at Tim Horton's. Drew had a bacon sandwich and an ice cap. (A BLT without the vegies.) We finished just as Clint's plane was unloading, so we went back and waited for him to come through "the doors".

He looked awful. The many hours of flying and the most retarded haircut a person could sport did not work in his favor.

He was hungry so I bought him a 5 part Tim Horton's meal too.

He ate and talked the whole way home.
It was sunny in Peru the entire time he was there but the pollution was so thick he never saw the sky. He was completely congested and all hacky-coughy and he said it was from the poor air quality.
I guess there's something to be said for the pollution controls we have in place in North America.

Every once in awhile he'd look up from his food and exclaim, "Wow. The trees. They're so beautiful." Or, "The air. It smells so good. Can you smell that?" "When I left, everything was so green ... look at all the color! It's awesome. So beautiful."

I arranged for Jul to be at our house, waiting with her scissors. She gladly cleaned up his head. And then. And then do you know what he did?



(Well first he complained about his brothers wearing his clothes while he was gone.) Then he cleaned the upstairs bathroom with enthusiasm and a smile.

"Why are you taking pictures of me doing this?"

"I'm going to get myself a daughter-in-law. I'll post this on my blog, and some girl's mother will encourage her daughter to flirt with you. You may not currently have a girlfriend, but I have a number of potential mothers-in-law all lined up for you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By the way, the other night when I went to bed at midnight and Drew had his friend John over? Remember that night? I think it was last Friday. Well, this is what they were doing:

Two summers ago, Drew undertook the paint-my-room-blue-and-green project all by himself. It looked like a 12 year old did it. Which was accurate, because a 12 year old did do it. Last weekend. Drew offered his biggest wall (the one that doesn't have a window, closet or door on it) to John as a blank canvas for John's artwork.

They found a partial can of white crown moulding paint and John rolled what was left of it onto "his" wall at midnight. The following day, Drew invited some friends over to doodle on it and graffiti it up.

Aren't I an awesome mother?

I didn't yell. I didn't even react.


Three things I'm thankful for:

1. He's home. Things are as they should be.

2. God gave him a spectacular day for his re-entry. Clint noticed and appreciated it.

3. I feel at peace.

Shalom,

2 comments:

Trev said...

Drew and I have the exact same taste when it comes to "timmy's"! An ice-cap and a BLT without the "T".

Good to hear Clint made it home safely.

Anonymous said...

The first part of this blog is just awesome too; I loved when you wrote about being willing to bribe him to make him like you.
Add this one to my list.
September