From Tennessee To Texas to Saudi Arabia

The news that the visa was approved came the weekend of Drew’s graduation. This was excellent timing to be able to share the news. The difficult part is that all the list that included what needed to be done in preparation now had to be addressed, and in relatively short order.

I set my departure date for a month, which I thought would allow me to attend Macy’s state softball tournament, be there for the birth of Matthew and Ryan, pack household items into storage that we didn’t want to sell, pack bags of items for me to take with me, and work up until departure date. I got to do all of that. I had just forgotten to include sleeping on that list.

Thankfully, I decided to make my last day in the office the 25th of June and use vacation to delay my end-of-service date. Macy’s team took second at state, Matthew and Ryan were successfully carried and delivered to their parents by my wonderful wife, I ordered a PODS to pack up things we wanted to keep, and I crammed 31.9 kilos into each piece of luggage I was taking with me.

Can You Feel the Love Tonight, Part 1

During all this, I hit the magical milestone of 40 revolutions around the sun. I wasn’t worried about celebrating big…that’s not really my thing, and I was getting ready to move to Saudi Arabia. I figured looking back 10 years from now, it would be sufficient for me to say that I celebrated 40 by moving across the ocean.

Well, I was the only one with this plan. I’d spent the weekend with Greene at the hospital. The kids had come up a few times to visit. On Monday, I decided to drive back to Lake Jackson from Houston to take care of a few things around the house. I started on the nefarious to-do list as soon as I got home. After a few hours of work, I got a text from Greene letting me know the twins would be checking out of the hospital that afternoon. She wanted to get a picture with all of us, so I made one last stop in Lake Jackson before heading back to the hospital. (Evidence of the lost hospital weekend – I wrote a check at that last stop. I wrote the date as the 27th. I asked the lady if it was the 28th. She said, “Hon, it’s the 29th”)

So I arrive back at the hospital, and Greene tells me she needs to talk to me. Hmm. She gives me instructions to go to the car and find the card under the front seat, and to follow the instructions in that card. Not exactly what I was planning. My plans were another night on the hospital room sofa and making sure she was doing o.k., but I could tell how important this was to her. So off I went.

The card that was supposed to be under the front seat wasn’t there. Then I remembered picking up some things from the floorboard and setting them in the back seat. Sure enough, one of those things was the card. I opened it up and found that my birthday present was being delivered to Houston-Hobby at 5:30. So off I went. Oh, I hate Houston traffic.

I got to the airport around 6 (see previous reference to Houston traffic). I drove to the passenger pick-up area and started looking out for someone I knew. Then I saw somebody who looked like Doug. Nope, strike that, I saw Doug. I stopped in the middle of the arrivals lane and waited for him to come out. He greeted me with a “We got Doug in the car” and I tried to wrap my head around it. And I couldn’t. While catching up, I drove around the entire southeast side of Houston trying to find 610. Tremendous surprise, tremendous stress reliever, tremendous friend. We hung out for a few days, took in an Astros game where we talked more about family than baseball  (partly due to the fact that we hardly knew any of the players. Priorities have shifted a bit). He helped me pack the kitchen up, and the boy’s a packin’ fool. Great way to celebrate my birthday.

Can You Feel the Love Tonight, Part 2

We spent the 4th in Galveston to watch the fireworks from the seawall. We stopped by Rainforest Cafe after the fireworks for a Volcano, root beer floats and cheesecake. Can’t wait for this crew to join me in Saudi and beyond!

Can You Feel the Love Tonight, Part 3

We invited Mom down for a short visit before I left. She made plans to stay from the 6th until the 8th. She made the mistake of asking if there was anything I wanted before I headed to the Kingdom of No Pork. So naturally, I requested pork. I was on a bit of a pork roll by this point, alternating between pulled pork, pork ribs, ham sandwiches, bacon cheeseburgers and pork tamales for every meal. But Tennessee had one thing I couldn’t get in Texas – Benton’s Bacon. Chris introduced me to the stuff at Calhoun’s in Knoxville. There is no better combination of meat, fat, smoke and salt. My other request was chocolate-dipped crullers from Krispy Kreme. I didn’t think it would be that hard. I assumed a quick run to Krispy Kreme and Food City would be all that was involved. Maybe have to travel to metropolitan Johnson City to find the bacon in a more sophisticated emporium of fine foods. Nope – it was Knoxville. And it was an adventure. The bacon took a few stops, but actually proved to be the easiest of the request to fill.

Krispy Kreme doesn’t sell chocolate-dipped crullers east of Nashville. What corporate knucklehead made that call. I love the glazed doughnuts, and a chocolate covered Kreme filled is the epitome of guilty pleasure. But the crusty fried goodness of a cruller dipped in that one-of-a-kind chocolate is the Grand Pumbah of desert in breakfast’s clothing.

So Mom works her magic with a story about her only son’s last porking wish, goes to the grocery store and buys the plain crullers and returns to the store (**this section redacted**) and comes out with chocolate-dipped crullers. That is some kind of Mom.

So I spent the last two days in the States living on crullers and bacon.

I won’t talk saying goodbye to the family at the airport – this is a feel good story.