Excuse Me, Mr. President

Before moving forward with new adventure stories, I want to back up to the drama of last Thursday. Thursday marked the end of my solo parenting adventure, as the Captain boarded a flight to join us for the remainder of our vacation.

As if I were the one flying, I spent the day with my stomach in an anxious knot. I took my Nana to Chick-fil-a for lunch to distract myself, hoping the kids could play while we chatted. Except... this is customer appreciation week, so the normally noisy lunch crowd was off the charts. We even had three giant cow mascots dancing through the store to add to the mayhem.

Unfortunately, the combination of flying day nerves and my sense of being out of control of the lunch situation totally took away my appetite. Those who know me know that I never lose my appetite. Yes, sometimes I forget to eat, sometimes I am too busy to eat, sometimes I am simply too lazy. But those are just games to prove that hunger doesn't control me. I can always eat. On this day, I could not eat my chicken sandwich, no matter how much I wanted to. So sad.

To add to the drama of my day, the rain was settled into Northeast Ohio for the third day in a row, with more forecast through the weekend--our family beach weekend. I know I have been extolling the virtues of the rain, but now I remember midwestern rain: it settles in and chills your bones with its dreary ordinariness.

On Thursday, everyone in town seemed to be in a funk, and I don't even blame them. Milli Vanilli may have mocked his girl for blaming it on the rain, but I think the oppresiveness of this blah weather truly has a physical touch.

Well anyhow, after spinning my wheels and anxiously whiling away the long dreary rainy day, I finally got on the road to the airport.

I dropped the kids at the home of my new/old friend Kristen, who had offered me a much appreciated date night! With my separation from the Captain almost to a close, I took off for the airport to meet his 5:09 flight into Cleveland.

At 5:10, I received a text: Good news, I'm on the ground.

And then I received a second text: Bad news... I'm in Columbus.

What???

It turned out that our august national leader had an appointment in Cleveland that afternoon. And he got a little behind schedule. And he was a little late getting back to Air Force One for his outbound flight.

And all traffic into and out of Cleveland came to a standstill until he made his flight.

So the Captain's plane circled Cleveland a time or two, then ducked down to Columbus, 120 miles away, for a spot o' fuel while they waited.

I was a little ticked with our President for disrupting my date night.

But the plane finally came to its final destination, and I finally picked my honey up from the curb. We had our date night in the end, at a nice Japanese steakhouse. And by the time we picked our kids up from Kristen's house, they were fast friends with her kids.

They say that all's well that ends well. All my anxiety dissolved immediately upon reconnecting with the Captain. He even brought me sunbeams. We had nice weather for almost 24 hours after he arrived, including our first afternoon at the beach.

No thanks to President O.