The Bitter End

This is Bruce. I am too tired for italics and I have no pictures. It's 9 pm and, in my opinion, we leave in 7 hours. Barb may have a different view. The house is mostly packed. I don't think the landlord will think it is appropriately cleaned, but then he didn't see it this morning. 10 large suitcases are filled beyond capacity and surely weight limit. We managed to cram them into a small station wagon and Barb is, as we speak, driving them to Heathrow for overnight storage. This turns out to be cheaper than the $500 cab fare. Hopefully Barb will start packing when she gets back (Barb would likely argue that last this statement constitutes unnecessary exaggeration and embelishment, and might even be construed as "misleading;" however, I feel it accurately conveys my experience).

The girls are asleep. They survived today pretty well considering they were mostly yelled at and were not allowed to make messes, which translates for them into not being allowed to do anything. Sophia was so excited about going home tomorrow that she swore she would not sleep all night. Course she was the first to conk out. They have big plans for plane ride: games, writings, etc. We'll see. On the flight over here they slept much of the way, but tomorrow we leave in the morning and it's 11.5 hours to SF. That sounds unmanagable to me, but then I did book the flight.

So I sit here, drinking the last beer in the house, and, like Holden, trying to experience some sort of good bye. I guess I am glad we came. Surely it was a great experience for the girls, though I doubt they feel that way right now. It brought them closer together -- they relied on eachother when stressed or facing uncertainty instead of relying on their friends. It was interesting and important for us to visit other cultures together. And, of course, it was good for my career. On the other hand, I can't help feeling we missed out on many things. Paul is growing up before our eyes, though for us only in pictures, and there seem to have been many events, including my brother going to the ranch twice, that simply passed us by. Of course it was great to have so many people visit us, and I guess vacations are nice, but really, what else is there besides family?

OK, I'll take italics. The luggage has been dropped off. Based on my questioning of several people with experience, we really do have to leave by 5 tomorrow, maybe even 4:30. And it looks like there may be some ice on the road so it still might be stressful. I only have my backpack left to pack, and a couple of items to drop off at friends' houses on our way out of town. Bruce doesn't know this yet. We'll see how that goes over. He says no dishes in the morning, only Nutragrain bars. I'm very curious to see how he drinks any coffee. I was going to order a costco holiday card before going to bed, but Bruce already packed (and I dropped off) our cd of pictures. So if nothing goes out this year... Apologies in advance to anyone who would reasonably expect souvenirs. We're terrible shoppers, and even worse packers it turns out. Barb and Bruce signing out from the UK.