Being partnered for the last ten years with a tech-geek allows me to make the following prediction: CLH has been clutching his iPhone in his gnarled, crusty hands for the last 12 hours aboard that boat, waiting, just waiting for the signal to come in so that THE SECOND IT DID, say, at 3:35 am, for instance, he would use it to call me to say he was within cell phone range and nearing Hilo.
Not that I'm upset he called. I'm thrilled he called. What I'm upset about is that I was already awake at 3:35 am because I was having a terrible nightmare about my youngest brother. Maybe my stomach was plotting some sweet revenge against me for eating all that ground meat for dinner. Or maybe my subconscious mind took in the last few pages of the book I was reading before bed and morphed them into something more familial and vicious. Either way, I was lying in bed at 3:45 sweating and VERY much awake when I heard the voice mail chime on my phone.
He's back, Internets! Scheduled to make port in Hilo right around now. And I am scheduled to meet him in Hilo in a mere two days. Everyone has been asking me if I am excited to go. Well, duh. It's been raining cats and dogs since I got back from New Mexico and I couldn't be more thrilled to spend the next week on a tropical island with my favorite guy. I'm going to presume that this trip was life altering for CLH. Judging from the sporadic texts and emails I received from the boat, he's had lots of time to think about stuff. And you don't stare at an endless horizon for 30 days with nothing but your thoughts to keep you company and not come back to land a changed man. Does the prospect of meeting a changed man in Hilo scare me a little? Yes, yes it does. Does it also make me giddy with excitement? Yes, yes it does. Does it make me unable to concentrate on ANYthing work or otherwise adult-responsibility-related right now? Yes, again.
I've been slow to post my pictures from New Mexico because I have been busy trying to make travel arrangements (how 19th century does the term "travel arrangements" sound? You'd think I was boarding a steamer bound for some mysterious tropical climate to cure my woman hysteria or my fainting spells). Anywho, I've been trying to pull together a little something special for CLH when he comes home. Emails, emails, emails with all the various moving parties, checking the Internet for flight deals, researching... So that's been eating up all my free time. Well, that, and all the hamburger eating.