Kitty and Kitten Sanchez

Where were we . . . ?

 

I was on my way to the airport when J. texted me that his plane had landed.  I drove to Terminal E where he was waiting and called.  There was some confusion as we both claimed to be at Terminal E and yet could not see each other.  Then J. asked an employee if he was in Terminal E, and they informed him he was in “Departures” and needed to go downstairs to “Arrivals”.

 

Unfortunately, while that was being worked out, Isabella woke up.  The combination of being up past 9, in the car, and suddenly in the presence of a rather unfamiliar person sent her into a full meltdown.  My attempts to telepathically inform her that screaming for 20 full minutes wasn’t the best way to get her absentee father to visit more often were unsuccessful.  

 

J. rode in the backseat with Isa for the ride back to the apartment.  Despite the waterworks, Julio still managed to become awestruck with her.  He kept saying how much she had grown and how beautiful she was.  

 

We got to the apartment and I put Isabella to bed.  It was then I realized the first error in the scheduling of this trip.  In the original plan, I was going to meet up with Julio in the morning with a chipper, freshly rested Tink.  Our mutual interest in the baby would prevent any awkwardness caused by the fact that Sober Julio and Sober Kit haven’t spent as much time together as the Non-Sober Us.  So I grabbed a beer and Julio discovered some whiskey my older brother had left behind so that Slightly Buzzed Kit and Liquored Up Julio could hang out.  

 

He asked a slew of questions about Isabella, then he said he had seen my photography website and commended me on its awesomeness.  (I think his sister-in-law sent the link to the family portrait I did for them to her entire family, but I didn’t ask so as not to look all over-interested.)

 

Then he said he had seen the director/actor commentary version of our film “Lily Sanchez” on YouTube.  (My best friend/actress K. and I recorded the commentary last May when she visted the Tink and I for a week.)  He thought it was a really good idea to do a commentary track (kind of in a way that made me wonder if he had never seen an actual commentary track on a feature film), and said he enjoyed hearing his contributions to the film discussed. He especially liked that the commentary referenced one of our most famous arguments: the background music for the film’s opening sequence.  He wanted a classic bolero and I wanted Ground Control to Major Tom.  I won.  

 

We hung out until Isabella woke up for the first time, then we all crawled into bed.  Isabella was a little disconcerted by the newcomer in the bed, and I wasn’t exactly thrilled to be nursing her in front of J.  (Fortunately he never acted weird about the breastfeeding and I got more at ease with it through the week.) Eventually we all fell asleep.

 

After a night of the interrupted sleep that comes with a baby, we got up around 7 am.  I was actually really impressed with J.’s willingness to get up so early since sometimes he’s not even getting into bed until 7 am.

 

I asked J. to pick out an outfit for the Tink.  But instead he just let her throw her clothes all over the floor and said, “She doesn’t know what she wants to wear.”  Noticing he was wearing a bright orange polo, I pulled out a little orange dress.  ”How about this?  You two can match.”  ”Oh yesssssss,” he said, “That will be so nicccccccccce.”  I decided not to detect the sarcasm in his voice and I put the orange dress on her.

 

We went out to the House of Pies for breakfast where  J. got a healthy dose of dining con bebe.  Tinka kept standing up in the high chair so he finally sat her in his lap.  Where she proceeded to throw all of his food on the floor and scream whenever he wouldn’t let her drink my diet coke.  On the positive side, the waitstaff and all the diners in a 10 foot radius kept complimenting us on our beautiful daughter which he very much enjoyed. 

 

After breakfast we started to drive over to the Children’s Museum, but on the drive over the sky opened up and dropped a huge monsoon on top of us.  J. hasn’t gotten used to the fact that I can drive and do drive all the time, so he kept offering to take over.  I was like “uhhhhh.  You don’t have a license.”  We decided to go the Galleria instead so we could walk around indoors until the tsunami was over.  

 

J. indulged me by wearing the babyHawk mai tei to carry Isabella (complete with it’s flowerdy print panel) while we walked through the mall.  Within 15 minutes we had found our way over to babyGap and quickly amassed about $150 worth of purchases.  I tried to tell J. that he didn’t need to spend so much, but he just said he hadn’t seen his daughter in a year and he wanted to buy her some presents.  (I decided not to point out that clothes from babyGap were really much more a present for ME than the Tink, because I enjoy dressing my baby up in overpriced cute clothes just as much as the next red blooded american girl.)  

 

After we walked the rest of the mall, we headed back out to the car.  J. asked if I had a stroller for the Tink so we wouldn’t always have to carry her.  I told him that I had gotten a nice stroller before she was born, but the damn thing was so huge it was pointless to keep it in the car as it took up the entire cargo space.  I told him there was a ghetto umbrella stroller in the back space that I had gotten for free with some BabiesRus purchase, but it was tragic and the Tink and I both hated it.  

 

So he said, let’s go to BabiesRus and get a new stroller. Woo hoo!  (That famous absentee-parent-guilt-spending was launching in full force.)

 

We got to BabiesRus and I got out the tragic umbrella stroller just to show Julio how truly tragic it was.  He was thoroughly unimpressed and decreed that Isabella must hate it.  He strapped her into it for “one last ride” and we went into the store.  

 

We went straight to the strollers.  I tried to play up the creme de la creme McClaren Quest Sport in Chocolate with Pink trim.  But J. was all “I don’t like pink.”  Then he saw a grey and orange stroller and put the Tink in that one and proceeded to wheel her around the store.  A salesgirl came by and saw me fiddling with the chocolate and pink number and I asked her how I could sell J. on that stroller over the orange one.  She pointed out that the seat was deeper and thus the baby would be more comfortable for longer.

 

J. came back telling me to come look at the toys.  He saw something he wanted to get Isabella.  I was all, “so, despite the fact that you, Isabella, and that orange stroller all look GREAT together working the whole construction site theme, the salesgirls says this one will last us longer.  See the seat is deeper.”  Julio agreed “only the best for Isabella” and put my stroller of choice in a shopping cart.  Score!

 

As we left BabiesRus, an elderly salesman complimented the Tink and J. on their matching looks, “I just love to see Daddy and Daughter in their matching outfits, that’s just great.”  I think J. was actually pleased with the comment.

 

From BabiesRus we went to the Children’s Museum and took the new stroller out for its first spin.  First I showed J. the section of the Museum that was dedicated to being a “Mexico-land” complete with adobe walls, tortilla stands, and a broken down looking VW fan.  Julio assessed the room and declared that it was a pretty good representation of his native country.  

 

 

We walked the rest of the “older child” part of the museum before setting up camp in the Tot Spot.  Ahh, the Tot Spot.  An entire safe, clean space where only children under 2 are allowed and therefore all the adults are totally baby-conscious.  We sat back and watched Isabella go nuts.  Isabella was displaying particularly gleeful exuberance in the ball-pit and I commented (totally innocently!): “She loves playing with balls.”  J. turned and gave me a loaded glance and I encountered my first awkward, pseudo-sexual moment of the trip.

 

After an hour or so of Tot Spot joy, Isabella started losing interest in the kids and toys and was only into The Boob.  So we packed it up and went back to the car.  We stopped at the grocery store on the way home and loaded up on enough food to feed a small army.  There we encountered the second awkward pseudo-sexual moment of the trip, when J. took a lingering, unexplained pause in the pharmacy section gazing at the Wall O’ Condoms.

 

Now, I won’t lie, in the weeks before J.’s visit, I had given some wayward thoughts to a hypothetical “walk down memory lane” (wink wink nudge nudge). However baby-related logistics and murphy’s law assured me that should any funny business get underway, the Tink’s demanding wail would sound just as things began to get good.

I later shelved the thought of hooking up with J. entirely when I realized his trip would coincide with my month’s most fertile days.  Now, history has shown that I can be somewhat irresponsible- as evidenced by my unplanned motherhood- but I have to draw the line somewhere, and it is my belief that J. and I together are 100% incapable of using a prophylactic the way they insist you do in the instructions. And despite any argument to the contrary that J. may have been subliminally sending my way during this random detour at the Taj ma-condom, I just wasn’t going to go there.  

(Then again, it’s entirely possible that the combination of breastfeeding and being present for Isabella’s birth and knowing it is possible to impregnate me has put J. permanently off sex with me. In which case, I was reading way too much into what was in fact an even weirder pause by the condom wall.)

 

We made it through the grocery store without a Tinka meltdown, and were in the check-out lane when I realized I had left my cloth bags in the car. I passionately announced that J. was not to let them sack our groceries in plastic and that I would be back in five seconds. (I must admit that my green streak has been somewhat inspired by the pseudo-satirically presented environmental efforts of Nancy Botwin on Weeds, but hey, if it saves the earth, who cares that i’m only doing it to be cool?) Unexpectedly, J. was way impressed, moved by my display of care for the earth and kept telling me for the rest of the day how cool he thought I was for using cloth bags. And I was of course delighted that the cloth bags had succeeded in making me look cool, which was kind of my goal all along.

 

As we drove back the the apartment, J. looked around the neighborhood and said he was pretty sure his cousin lived somewhere nearby and whipped out his phone.  After a stream of incomprehensible Spanish, he hung up and announced that Augustin was coming over for dinner.  

 

At the apartment we put away the groceries.  (J. commented again on the awesomeness that was my cloth-bag-policy.)  Then we started dinner.  J.’s phone rang; Augustin was at the gate.  He went to go get him.

 

Like 20 mintues later, I began to wonder if J. was coming back.  Finally, they appeared.  They had gotten locked outside the gate and didn’t know the code.  J. told me he’d been calling me to come rescue them; and my call log corroborated his story.  (You win this one, naughty Mexican boys.)

 

J. starts cooking and we open a bottle of wine- which makes me nervous because I don’t drink so much these days with all the breastfeeding and all, and I have a tendency to start saying stupid things after only one glass of wine.  

 

(I mean, I know it’s stupid literally as it is coming out of my mouth, but that doesn’t stop me from answering Augustin’s “how did you meet Julio?” with “my friend and I were bar hopping down town and when we came into Julio’s bar, I saw him working and really wanted to have sex with him.” or something equally embarassing.  I also announced that when they carried on lengthy conversations in Spanish, I felt the way dogs must feel alone in a room full of humans- glancing back and forth at them with interested, but clueless eyes.)  ***They actually both LOVED the dog comment, and proceded to repeat it over and over again.***  ”No, Augustin, in English, we are making her feel like the dog with humans again.”

 

I also repeatedly felt stupid because Augustin kept holding up his point-and-shoot camera at me and I’d smile for the picture for several seconds waiting for the flash to fire, only to realize he’d been shooting video and I probably looked really dumb.  

 

At Julio’s behest, I pulled up “Lily Sanchez” on YouTube.  Augustin watched the whole thing and said he liked everything except for Julio’s cameo.  He said it seemed to random.  We tried to explain the joke, but Augustin said Julio didn’t act it right.  Then Julio told Augustin the story of how all of my classmates at film school had spent thousands of dollars on their films, and that we had done my film for a few hundred dollars and won the prize.  Augustin asked who was the actress.  Julio said, “her roommate, she didn’t even hire actors.  Her roommate was an actor, and she did really good!”  Augustin added that she also looked very good.  

 

After that, Augustin and I played with the Tink while Julio made dinner: Caprese salad and this Cheese-stuffed Chicken that was freaking amazing.  Then the boys drank some more before Augustin went home.  J. and I got the Tink ready for bed, then we all piled into bed and watched Anger Management before going to sleep.  (Julio put on his filmmaker hat while he watched the movie and kept making comments like “Marisa Tomei doesn’t have a face for close-ups.” and “That looks like such a set.” and “So obviously green screen, the lighting was done totally wrong.”)

 

The next morning we woke up, made coffee, and got ready for the day.  The plan was to go to the zoo.  Julio showered and got ready while I gave the Tink breakfast.  Once he was dressed, I asked him if he’d watch our daughter while I then could get ready.  When I got out of the shower and started to dry my hair, I could hear the Tink fussing.  I came out to the living room and started to suggest that he take her outside and show her the trees to calm her down.  But he had clearly become frazzled at being responsible for the baby.

 

“She doesn’t want to go outside.  She only wants YOU.  And it’s not pleasant for me to see her upset.”

 

I’m thinking.  ”uh, asshole. sometimes babies cry, that’s just what they do.  you can’t improvise for 15 minutes so I can actually take advantage of having a two parent playing field for once?”  But to avoid a scene, I just took the baby while he stormed out to smoke a cigarette.

 

I fed Tinka a little more and then put her in the highchair in the bathroom doorway while I finished drying my hair and getting ready.  Then I got dressed and picked out an outfit for the Tink.

 

As I got the TInk dressed, I could hear J. talking to someone on the front porch.  I went outside to see a plumber firing questions at Julio who was trying to explain he didn’t live there.  I quickly deduced the neighbor upstairs had called a plumber and was all, “Yes!  He has a plumbing problem, and it brought my ceiling down. Please come look!”

 

Well.  That quickly turned into me and the upstairs neighbor both had problems that were feeding each other.  And the plumber wanted to fix the pipes.  Now.

 

I was like “How long is this going to take?  We are trying to go to the zoo.”

 

The plumber kept changing his story.  ”20 minutes.  An hour.  15 minutes.  It will take me 15 minutes to fix, but an hour to drive and get my part.  If you give me $10, I will go buy the part from Home Depot and fix it now.”

 

Totally frustrated, I gave him a $20 and said, “Put this towards the cost of the repair.  But I only have $60, so it can’t cost more than that.”  He nodded and left.  Julio came back into the apartment and I was all, “I’m so irritated.  I didn’t call this guy, and now he’s throwing off the whole day.”  Julio said to relax and not worry, then sheepishly said, “It’s so much work to take care of a baby.  It’s really amazing you take care of Isabella all the time every day.  You should be proud.”  I wanted to say something bitchy like “well, who else would take care of her.  Clearly not her other parent the 1% of the time he’s around.”  But I realized this was his attempt at an apology so I just said something like “thanks” and moved on.

 

The plumber returned with the part and set about to fix the pipes which were apparently clogged in the shower drainage.  The annoying thing was the plumber treated me to an empassioned running commentary on the degree to which the pipes were clogged.  And he kept coming out to get me and insisting I come look at all the nastiness he was pulling out of the pipes. I was thinking, “Uh, I just got here like two days ago.  And I don’t need a plumbing lesson or a round of show and tell, just fix it and leave.”  

 

Finally, the pipes were supposedly fixed; which was pretty awesome because the drip that Mr. Fixit had re-routed had now stopped.  I gave the plumber $40 more dollars and managed to get him out of the house.  Then J. and I gathered up the Tink and left for the zoo.  

 

Once at the zoo, we loaded up the Tink into the McClaren Quest Sport for it’s second voyage and rolled through the parking lot to the entrance.  Once there, I let Julio lead the way on our tour of the animal exhibits- a decision which I somewhat regretted as his path possessed no rhyme or reason.  ”Let’s go to the monkeys.”  ”Sure, they’re at the complete other end of the park and we haven’t seen all the animals in this area, but whatever.”

 

After touring the zoo’s highlights: monkeys, tigers, giraffes, elephants, etc., everyone was hungry so we decided to go back home.  On the way out J. took the Tink to the gift shop and let her pick out a toy.  She reacted rather exuberantly to a slightly manic looking ring-tailed lemur with lime green eyes, so that was what she got.  

 

Augustin called on the ride home to invite J. and I to come out to dinner with his family, and we agreed to meet at 6:30.  We got back to the apartment and took a quick dip in the pool.  Isabella took “Mommy and Me” swimming lessons earlier this year and I was pleased at how much she remembered.  She was really into “swimming” back and forth between J. and I.  It started to rain, so we started thinking about heading in.  Then a creepy neighbor wandered by and wouldn’t stop talking to us so we packed it in and went inside.  

 

 

I asked Julio if he wanted to give the Tink a bath- which he took to mean: keep his bathing suit on and get into the bath WITH the Tink, which totally threw her off.  So he was all, she hates baths; or she hates me giving her a bath.  And I was all, no, she just doesn’t get why you are in the bath with her.

 

 

After his bizarre attempt to bathe the baby, J. passed her off to me so he could shower for real.  After he was dressed and I was sure the Tink was content at playing, I slipped off to take a quick shower too.  While we got ready, another monsoon washed through.  The rain finally slacked off enough to let us dash to the car.

 

On the drive to the restaurant, J. asked me if I wanted to know what his father had sent him for his birthday.  I responded it wasn’t his birthday yet.  He explained the gift came early.  I bit, “what did he send you?”  Another cousin.  She was studying in New York and needed to live with Julio.  ”Well, how’s that going?” I asked.  ”She’s 27.”  He responded with the same disdain as if he’d said, “She’s 12.”  I responded, “I’m 26, you know.”  (J. seems to have a mental block about our 9 year age difference.)  He exhaled a quick burst of air, and then added, “Well, she’s also very conservative.  And she won’t sleep in my loft bed, so have to sleep there and she sleeps in my bed.”  ”Huh.” I said, smiling secretly, “Well. That is an interesting situation.”

 

We got to the restaurant where we met Augustin, his wife, and their twin girls who are about 8 years old.  They remembered me and Isabella from their visit to the hospital when she was born and were both fascinated with her.  Well, both were fascinated for the first 10 minutes, then one of them became fascinated with ME.

 

Augustine’s wife asked me to write down my name and number for her.  One of her daughters peered over my shoulder and exclaimed, “Your name is Kit (they had thought “Kate”, it’s the accent difference.)?!  That’s the same as Kit Kittredge the American Girl Doll!”

 

Now, why I chose to go down this road, I know not.  But I answered, “That’s right!  And do you know what?  I have the Kit doll.”  It’s true.  I had love American Girl Dolls when it was age appropriate to do so and had not one but two of the “History” dolls: Molly and Felicity.  Later, when I was about 20, they released the “Kit” doll, and because my mom thought she kind of looked like me she got her for me as a Christmas present for nostalgia.  

 

But the whole “for nostalgia” aspect was lost on J.’s niece.  She was in awe and delight that a GROWNUP. would LOVE.  AMERICAN GIRL. JUST LIKE HER.  She interrogated me on my dolls.  Then started taking video of me (again confusing me like Augustine had and not telling me it was video)- I caught on when she started narrating that “This is Kit, just like the Doll.  She is my cousin’s mom.  She is a grown up who I have a lot in common with.”  

 

Then the little girl insisted her mom trade seats with her so that she could sit next to me and start explaining every single detail of her American Girl fascination.  How they have Girl of the Year dolls, and you can only get them that year.  Sometimes you can buy them on E-bay, but they get more expensive.  And there are movies.  And babies.  And dolls you can get to look just like you.  And here is a list of the accessories she was hoping to receive for her birthday.

 

I kept thinking her mother would rescue me, but she just smiled that “Isn’t she cute?” smile before turning back to join the Spanish conversation with J. and A.  Eventually the food arrived, and the little girl was slowed down- slightly- by the necessity of chewing.  I thought the end of the evening was in sight, but instead we just moved the party outside.  

 

Outside, everyone but me and the children sat and chain-smoked and drank cocktails.  I put on my best “I’m bored and tired, but I would want you to think that I’m trying to hide my boredom and tiredness” face and made a great display of shooing non-existent mosquitos away from Isabella.  They ordered dessert for the girls, and while they waited for it to arrive, one member of my 8 year old fan club came up to me and announced that a lot of the time she could tell what people dreamed about by touching them.  She asked if she could try to figure out what I dreamed about and I told her to go nuts.  She put her hand on my shoulder and started to think.  Then the cake arrived and she informed me that she was too distracted thinking about the cake and she’d have to try again later.  Figures.

 

Finally, J. picked up on my oh so subtle signals and announced that Isabella was tired and needed to go home.  We said goodnight, got the Tink in the car, and went home.

 

Once I got the Tink to bed, I came back to the living room to hang out with J.  J. was all charged up and chatty from having been out, and our hanging out felt oddly like being back in his apartment in Brooklyn at 6 in the morning, just in from a long night.  He drank, we talked.  He said he really appreciated the effort I took to let us spend the week by ourselves in the apartment, said that he thought I was an amazing mother, said he had loved being with his daughter that week.  (There are many bitter retorts I could have thrown out, had I wanted to be contrary.  But instead I let him wax poetic.)

 

After talking for a while and getting sleepy, he asked if I wanted to watch another of the films he had bought.  ”What film?”  I asked.  And he answered, “As good as it gets.”

 

Which was not the right answer.  The film was actually “Something’s gotta give”.  Now, I can understand the mistake.  Both Jack Nicholson playing Jack Nicholson.  Both titles have a lot of G sounds, I guess.  But I am not sure I would have agreed to “Something’s Gotta Give”.  

 

For one, it’s a film that I’m sure is slightly painful for any couple- much less co-parent, former couple- to watch.  The themes are universal: men clinging to youth through an endless revolving door of young consorts, women wanting love and wanting to sing it from the rooftops the moment they find it, men’s search for freedom, women’s search for security, blah blah blah.  

 

More awkwardly, there is that painful (painfully funny, I think it’s supposed to be) scene where Diane Keaton storms out of a restaurant after spying Jack on a date with a hot young thing, and then they have a fight on the sidewalk before she speeds away in a cab.  It’s a scene that just feels viscerally similar to at least two fights J. and I had back in New York.  On a sidewalk.  Before I sped away in a cab.

 

Also, it’s a film we’ve watched together before.  So, it just brought back a lot of memories I guess.

 

***On second thought, it is entirely possible that “As Good as it Gets” would have been equally if not more painful/awkward.  I mean, c’mon.  In that one Jack Nicholson is heartlessly involved with a single mom who, if I’m not mistaken, has a monologue where she talks about how she misses having a man around- “for fucking” (her words)- among other things.  So, yeah, close call.***

 

Anyway, we got through the sidewalk meltdown scene and were both laughing at Diane’s writing/crying/laughing montage.  Then the room had a distinct tension when Jack and Diane start IMing and Jack starts to write “I miss y-” and then stops and they say Good night.  J. suddenly said he was tired and we switched off the tv.  He stroked Isabella’s hair for a few minutes and then said, “Good night, girls.”

 

Morning arrived of the last full day of the visit.  As we got ready and Julio went outside to smoke the first morning’s cigarette, I thought aloud how comfortable I had become in the apartment that week.  How I’d really like Isabella and I to move there permanently.  He agreed that it was a good idea, so she and I could be more independent.  I mused about improvements I’d like to make- paint the walls something warmer than the institutional white, plant some plants in the patio area in the back of the apartment.  If I could actually get in there.  I joked to J. that the overgrown patio had turned into “The Secret Garden” from years of neglect.

 

After coffee and showers and clothes on, oh my, we loaded up into the car to take the Tink to the Houston Aquarium.  I warned J. that the Houston Aquarium was smaller than most fish departments in your average Wal Mart, but he refused to drive out to the Galveston Aquarium- apparently it’s like the only thing he and his brother’s family has done for every visit he’s paid them.

 

 

We arrived to the Aquarium and strolled the Tink through.  As promised, it took about 8 minutes.  The last exhibit – rather out of place – is a pair of white Bengal Tigers.  They were active and pacing right by the glass of their “habitat”.  Tink was amused by them so we sat down and let her watch them for a while before heading back to the car.

 

 

We were starving on the drive home so we picked up some fast food.  Back at the apartment, the Tink took intense delight in feeding J. his french fries and drinking all of his Diet Coke.  The Tink LOVES Diet Coke, and while I have major guilt whenever I give in and let her have a sip, J. had no problem letting her go nuts every time we were out.  

 

After we ate, we suited up and went out to the pool again.  Having to do the whole bathing suit thing was not my favorite – post baby body and all – but I felt I was cavalier about it.  The worst part was I haven’t bought a new suit this summer, and the huge Tankini I wore last year in the last trimester of my pregnancy hangs on me and doesn’t quite hold m’boobs in.  Awkward…

 

It seems we were not meant to have good luck with the pool.  Whereas the first attempt was blown by the monsoon, this time we were not in the pool five minutes before a different hostile, creepy looking guy joined us.  The guy started asking some random questions, and J. rebuffed him by getting out of the pool and laying out on a lounge chair.  But I was totally irritated at being left in the pool with the baby, so I wrapped the two of us in a towel and announced I was going back to the apartment.  J. said he’d be in in a few minutes, and quickly made a sarcastic quip about the beautiful nature sounds as the landscaping crew fired up their mowers and blowers.  

 

The Tink went down for a nap once we were dried off, so I put on an episode of Weeds and sprawled out on the couch.  A few minutes later, J. sheepishly appeared apologizing for being weird at the pool.  I coolly asked what ever was he talking about, I hadn’t noticed him being “weird”.  (When cornered, I can become beyond passive aggressive.)  J. took the bate and mumbled about the guy creeping him out and being too nosy, then said he needed to go back by the pool to get something.  I said “k” without looking up from my show.

 

A few seconds later, J. walked in triumphantly.  ”I got those guys to clear out your patio.”  Surprised by the gesture- and the fact that he was actually listening to my ramblings about the apartment earlier, I said, “What?”

 

“Now you can do your garden if you move here.”  He said, “Look.”  True enough, the vines and weeds and complete nightmare that was the patio was gone.  I was a little bit touched, I must admit.

 

After cleaning up from the pool, J. started dinner.  Steak, potatoes, and vegetables.  Mmmmmm…  Isabella even enjoyed the steak, even though she preferred the chicken from earlier that week.  We finished dinner, and took the Tink out for a walk around the neighborhood in her stroller.  

 

We strolled the TInk until it got dark then came back to the apartment and I gave her a bath.  We had some wine and then watched the rest of “Something’s Gotta Give” in bed.  J.’s flight left at 7 am, so we set our alarms and went to sleep early.  J. was definitely a little sad to be beginning his last night with the Tink.

 

5 am came fast.  We crept out of bed and stumbled around making coffee and finding clothes.  J. asked if he was sure I didn’t want him to take a cab; I said no, I needed to go to Kingwood that morning anyway to check on the dogs and besides the drive would be a half hour more he could spend with Isabella.  

 

J. rode in the back with Isabella on the way to the airport.  He was sniffly and sad.  As we got near the airport, he said, “Isabella wants me to tell you that we both think you are the most amazing mother.”  I told “Isabella” thank you for saying so.  

 

We arrived to the airport and all said our goodbyes.  And I drove back to Kingwood.

 

J. called as his plane taxied to LGA to ask if I’d e-mailed pictures from the trip yet.  He said he’d had a great week reconnecting with Isabella, and apologized for any times he may have acted like an asshole.  He asked me to give Isabella a kiss and then said he had to go before he missed her too much.

 

And then it was just me and the Tink again.

 

Here’s our “Raising Arizona” family photo from the visit: