My husband is scheduled to come home next month. Whooo! He's been talking about the day that they come home: travel arrangements, return to work, leave schedules, etc. For obvious reasons (as in: it won't stay the same), I tried my hardest to ignore any reference to days or dates, but eventually I had no choice. We are traveling to meet him at the return and we need hotel reservations. Plus, I'm one of the ombudsmen and I really need to act like I know what's going on.
So I asked for the estimated date, and put it in my brain. Then my kids asked if I knew. I started with a long speech about how dates don't mean anything, and they probably didn't even want to know, but finally I told them the date. I have mentioned to several people that it seems silly to organize a party when they will never return as planned, though it would be worse to organize nothing. That was several weeks ago. The ombudspeoples are planning their stuff, and the people in this house are getting excited. Only four more weeks! Only four weeks minus one day! I'm sure you know the next line in this story.
Today's email was titled: Homecoming Day Change. For one brief moment, I envisioned a surprise early return. (Insert sarcastic chuckling here.) No, no, of course, not. We're still weeks out and they're already delayed by several days. Instead of a convenient weekend afternoon, we're looking at a weekday evening. I knew it was coming but it still surprised me. (How is that even possible?) I'm sure there will be several more schedule adjustments before those boots hit the ground.
It seems that the only sure way to get them home on time is to fail to prepare for it. Perhaps I should stop shaving my legs, let the house fall apart, and overschedule the kids and myself. He's sure to come home then, right?
