Home Again

I have been home for a little over a week. My job was downsized when my company lost half its contract with the State Department, and I was one of the unfortunate few who ended up without a position. Even though I really didn't want to leave Kabul, the more I thought about it, the better home sounded. The closer my departure date came, the more I felt like a horse heading home to the barn - except that I had no way to run faster. And after I arrived home, I realized that this was the best place for me to be. I was unhappy with the way things ended in Kabul, but I felt good being home.

Max picked me up at the airport and we went out to an early lunch at Blanc Burgers + Bottles, which is a great "burger joint" on the Plaza, and then we stopped to get a few things before heading home to Sedville, where I stopped in to see my mother and show her that I was back safe and sound. That night, we went to dinner at McGrath's, where I had a wonderful filet, and then some friends came over to watch the State of the Union address. By the time they left, I had been awake for about 24 hours.

Part of that 24 hours had been spent on a large Delta plane that took me from Dubai to Atlanta in about 14 hours. I was tired and emotional and extremely unhappy when I found that my seat would be on the very last row of the plane, which meant that I had to wait the longest to get off, and that I would be sitting close to the bathroom, where people would be traipsing over the entire flight, and where I would hear each flush of the toilet. This was about the worst news I could get at that particular time. I pleaded with the gate attendant in Dubai to try to find me a different seat. I guess she took pity on me, because she put me in a bulkhead seat, where I had plenty of room to stretch out and could easily climb over seat neighbors who might have fallen asleep.

We boarded the flight about 10:15 p.m., and took off around 11. I got comfy, thanked the gate attendant over and over for my wonderful seat, ordered a Scotch and soda, ate something, and then prepared to take my Advil PM so that I would be assured at least eight hours of sleep - leaving only about five hours to be up in the air with nothing to do. And that plan worked. But the guy next to me was REALLY serious about getting some sleep on the plane. While I had my Scotch and soda, he had two beers and three airplane bottles of Jack Daniels Black Label. He got a little cranky when the flight attendant wouldn't give him a fourth Jack Daniels, but then he ate his footlong sandwich from Subway, and then he popped an Ambien and put on his black-out eye mask. He didn't move for at least 10 hours - or at least I assume he didn't. When I woke up from my eight-hour sleep, he was out like a light, and while I watched "Argo," he was STILL asleep. I was kind of wondering whether he was still breathing, but he moved and made a noise, stopping my worry.

A word about "Argo:" Wonderful. I love movies that tell a story so well that even if the audience knows the ending, the suspense is enough to make one wring one's hands in distress. "Notorious" (Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Raines) is such a movie. No matter how many times I see it, as soon as Cary heads down to the wine cellar, my heart starts beating a little more rapidly. Well, "Argo" has that same quality. I was able to watch it on my personal screen, using my personal earbuds, knowing that I would see it more than once; Max was going to have to see it, too. Watching it, I was a wreck, glad that I was on a plane that kept me from jumping up from my seat and pacing at the back of the theater. And I knew how it ended!

After all that stress, I was ready to laugh a little, and so I watched yet another movie beginning with "A" - "Arthur," with Dudley Moore. I had not seen it in years, remembering some things about the plot, but mostly remembering that the interaction of Dudley Moore and Sir John Gielgud was nothing short of spectacularly engaging. And I had remembered right.

Even after watching those two movies, we still had 90 minutes of flying left to do! That time passed quickly, as Delta served us a third meal and coffee and tea - and wine and beer if we so chose. I suppose if I had been up for 14 hours straight without sleeping, and was still on Dubai/Kabul time, beer or wine would have been okay. That, however, was not the case, so with my breakfast, I drank a Coke for caffeine, a real Coke with sugar and calories!

We landed beautifully in Atlanta, where our first stop should have been customs and passport control. Unfortunately, however, we landed an hour early, and customs/passport control did not open for another half hour, so we were reduced to sitting on the plane until the customs people thought that opening early would be a good idea. And it was. Our flight was not the first one served by customs. By the regular opening time, hundreds of people were in the queue, and we were waiting patiently to be processed through into the good old USA. During the wait, we were surrounded with a display of huge digital photos showing America at her most beautiful - amber waves of grain, a lighthouse on a rocky shore, a lobster boil somewhere, one of Savannah's squares, and on and on. I was tired and emotional, and those pictures made me cry. I was happy to be back home.

We moved through the line quickly, and I was able to get my luggage quickly and then take it to the next check-in, where it was bound for Kansas City and HOME. It was barely 6:00 a.m., and so I headed up to a coffee shop in the Atlanta airport and had a mocha, and just sat around and watched the people go by. Everything was generally quiet, the place was clean, and the mocha was good. I reveled in being an American in America. The simple act of sitting in the airport drinking mocha made me pretty much ecstatic.

And that is how it has been since then. I have been ecstatic to cook dinner, to drink wine, to watch television, to talk to my husband, and to have friends over. I have not been ecstatic to clean house, however. All in all, my experience was a good one, but I am happy to be home again.