…she’s ba’-a-a-a-ck…

So, Monday morning, bright and early:

Grab Alek (literally) and turn him away from the TV and toward his closet. Ask him to get dressed while I go shower, shave, swear to never again stay up until three in the morning watching an Azumi and Azumi 2 double feature on late night cable. Emerge, half dressed, to find Alek standing in his underwear, a shirt around his neck, watching TV again. Turn the TV off, go search for my shoes (cats are holding one for ransom in the linen closet).

Pull Alek out of his room so he can put his shoes on. Head out for breakfast, after calling work to make sure there was no sudden server tragedy during the weekend that they forgot to tell me about (yes, it’s happened). Breakfast: Spanish food festival, Alek has eggs and cheese and molletes (toasted baguette with beans and cheese) while I have eggs with meat on meat mixed with meat. Cholesterol level rises, can feel veins scream in agony. Mmmm. Steal Alek’s bacon.

Drive up to work. 3 buses, 2 semis, 15 cars dodged, evaded, missed and narrowly avoided with Alek calling out “cut him off! cut him off! We need a cowcatcher to clear traffic!” and a bagpipe and fiddle song playing in the background on repeat. It’s about this time that I realize that I still have a very strange life sometimes, even if it involves less alcohol and waking up in parking lots than it did in college. Oh, and cigar-smoking car enthusiasts.

Get to work: we’re having issues with one of my guys in IT, need to either let him go or pull a trick out of my… sleeve. He’s a good guy, big family (5 kids at 25? I consider offering to buy him a TV for those cold nights), but we found some data on his laptop that seems to indicate he’s running a repair business on the side using work resources. Tsk. Alek is wondering if he can watch while I fire him, I start to wonder if we’re raising a little Lex Luthor. Speak to the guy and our IT liaison director, we end up agreeing to just shift his responsibilities and engage in a lateral move.

Biz-speak translation: We’re changing his job so he won’t have time to do anything on the side, and will be on the move so much none of his old clients will be able to track him down. He’s going to be one tired kid, but at least he keeps his job.

Alek mildly disappointed he did not get to watch ‘his getting canned’. Yeah, Lex, yeah.

We pop on down to see the boss: “Mister Grandpa” to our children. We tell him we’re off to pick up the wimmenz, he just… grins. And tells us, I kid you not, ‘god bless you, see you tomorrow’. You’d think I would be better at picking up on things like that, but no. I know there’s some construction going on on the way to the airport… I DON’T know just how bad that is, that my father knows, or that he derives so much amusement at having us head into that mess. Oh, well. 2:02, we’re out of his office and in the car.

2:25. Making good time so far, we take the offramp to get on the freeway that heads for the airport. We’ve seen a couple of construction signs, but no men working so far. Then, I notice that there’s new blue signs, flashing lights and cones. I turn to follow the airport sign and we head…

…into a parking lot-like gridlock where six lanes are trying to merge to three with people parked on both sides of a street heading downtown. It takes us twenty minutes to advance two blocks… where I spot another airport sign off on the far right while I am on the left lane. Ten minutes, a lot of honking and after almost pushing a compact that thought I would stop for him (the fool) into a lamp post, we’re on a different freeway and seem to have a clear shot.

3:10. The clear shot clogged. They have torn out the street to build a bridge. We’re off on an access road and I have spotted a couple of airport cabs. Assuming that they know where they are going, I slide in behind them and ask Alek to help me keep an eye on them and tell me if they turn off anywhere…

“Son, see the yellow and white truck up there?”

“Which one?”

“The one with the 348 on the side, right in front of this car in front of us…”

“…no.” “What do you mean no, it’s…” “…I see the 346, though!” “…”

I love our son. Even if he’s trying his damnedest to give me a stroke before I’m 40. We follow the cabs. Not hard, considering we’re not moving. Alek is playing his gameboy, the fiddle and bagpipes are still playing, no one is moving and I am trying to consult a map of the city to see if there’s any way that we can move again.

3:25. Out of the gridlock, on the on-ramp to the airport. The revamped, expanded airport that has detour signs all over the place.

3:45 Finally find the parking access, screech to a halt when we see someone pulling out, and we’re in. Nachos, chili and fajitas for lunch, we’re both starving, I am tired and headachy and he’s chattering happily. I envy him, hah. We wander around, in, out, up and down: have too much coffee, check the arrivals screen to make sure they don’t change her arrival gate last minute… or worse, that they don’t change TERMINALS last minute (yep, has happened too).

5:15. Their flight’s landed. 5:55, after a couple of false alarms and waiting, we finally spot Ann and Andi as they wait for customs to let them through.

We hug, and kiss, and hold on tight. So good to have them home.

…eventually, after getting a little lost when taking a detour on the way home, ending up going the wrong way until I found an access road that let us turn around and get on the freeway. We even stopped at Starbucks.