Travail

Our trip to Boulder had an unthinkable effect on both Rocket Boy and me: we were glad to get back to Ridgecrest.

It turned out to be a difficult trip. Our friend who we were visiting probably began to die the evening we arrived, which was Friday. He "completed the death process" or "passed over" or whatever you want to call it at 6:45 pm Sunday. RB was with him. I had been able to tell him how much he'd meant to me. Then immediately we had to start dealing with estate issues, because RB is the executor. All of this was so hard to do while babysitting toddler twins, in our mostly empty, non-babyproofed house.

RB and I were in shock; we thought he'd live weeks more, even months. We were grieving. I wanted someone to appear and take care of us, but instead we were the ones taking care of everything. If we'd been Clifford's real family, if RB had been his son, people might have brought us food, but nothing like that happened. We had to keep finding food for the twins, rushing off to baby-friendly restaurants, stopping off at the grocery store for some more mac & cheese. We had to stay a little longer than we'd planned, so I changed our flights, extended our rental car (at huge expense). My credit card company responded by cutting me off due to suspected fraud.

The day we left, Tuesday, was crammed with meetings and errands. I babysat and packed, did dishes and cleaned. RB made it home by 4pm, at which point I loaded the twins in the rental car and went off to return our two borrowed cribs. I got home at 4:45pm. We left for the airport just after 5pm. As we drove down I-25, RB realized he had forgotten his keys to the rental car (we had 2 sets). I turned around at the Pecos St exit and drove back to Boulder to get the keys. That meant that we returned the car at 7:00 pm (it was due at 6:30pm). We checked in for our flight and discovered that they had put all four of us in different rows, and each of us in the middle seat of the row, despite the fact that carseats are required by the FAA to be in window seats.

Picture us in the airport (after checking 3 bags). RB and I each had a backpack, he pushed a rental cart with the diaper bag and the two carseats, and I pushed the twins in their double stroller. We stopped for a quick dinner, then rushed for the elevator. We were almost to security when RB realized he'd left the cart with the carseats and diaper bag back at the restaurant. He rushed back to get them while I banged my head against the stroller. We ended up in a security lane with some really prize TSA agents: they made the babies take off their Robeez. An obnoxious TSA agent told me I could not walk through the magnetometer until our stuff had gone through the scanner. "One of you stay with your things, the other stay with the children," she ordered. But RB had already gone through, so I had to stay with both the stuff and the babies (who kept running away).

At the United gate we explained about the seating problem and the gate agent found us legal seats, two and two, but they were six rows apart. We asked if we could board early, so that RB could set up the carseats, but that was not allowed. Finally we were on the plane, twins ensconced in carseats. Two women in the row ahead of me made some snotty comments about how their flight was now ruined. Of course that turned out to be true. Baby A (sitting with me) screamed off and on the whole flight. Baby B (with RB) did the same. In desperation, RB brought Baby B to visit me a few times. At one point I said, "Give him to me, I'll cuddle him," forgetting that in front of me on my tray table were a can of Diet Pepsi, a plastic glass of Diet Pepsi and ice, and a carton of milk. The glass dumped over into my seat pocket, the milk went on the floor. When Baby A wasn't screaming he wanted me to read "Goodnight Moon," over and over. This seemed ironic, because although we had departed over an hour past the twins' normal bedtime, neither would sleep until the very end of the flight. Poor Baby A. I had to wake him up after a mere 10 minutes asleep.

The luggage was late. We dragged everything to the car, fit everything in. The bill for four and a half days in the most expensive lot was $90. I was worried about what might be in the car, because RB had left the windows slightly open. As we headed for the highway, RB noticed that we had an ant invasion in the car. We stopped for gas and that's when I learned that my credit card had been cut off.

I drove like a madwoman the 122 miles from the gas station to Ridgecrest. We got into town just after 1:00am. We realized we had no milk for breakfast, so stopped off at the grocery store. It had closed at midnight. We went home. There was a terrible odor from the cat boxes, but our cat sitter had left us a sympathy card.

I was honestly glad to be home.