When I got home or the Shocking Story of my Daughter's Dog

Thursday, April 2, 2009

"Where do I begin...", so starts the famous line of the song about the worst love story in cinematic history, at least in my opinion. This is like listing the most disagreeable mass murderer or most annoying chick flick, but I digress.
Understand that this is not an itinerary, but a list of things that happened which we hadn't planned, ala John Lennon's famous quote in the song Beautiful Boy which goes, "Life is just what happens to you, While you're busy making other plans."
We participated in a wedding, we being used very broadly in reference to me, plus witnessing 2 others. We took roughly 6,200 photos, 200 by me and 6,000 by Larry. Basically, it was quality versus quantity. We narrowly missed a fist fight, got ourselves in a somewhat dangerous fix in a very bad neighborhood, got drenched in a seaside rainstorm, saw a double rainbow, visited some very difficult sights to see, shopped in exotic places, were scammed in front of churches, scammed on the street and down alley ways, walked almost a hundred miles, ate food at an elegant restaurant, ate food at a snack bar by a mosque, saw ancient wonders, saw more dead people than you could shake a stick at, and made a discovery that will change the ways that the world views one of its greatest art treasures, lost my coat, lost my passport and did many other things.

Well back to the narrative for Thursday, April 2, 2009.

Larry graciously drove me home.

It was so nice to stretch my legs in the car. That was one thing that returning to America, which is my home meant to me. That often wasn't possible on the Metro in France or in the Sherute in Israel, or on the airlines.

I paid for the 2 Double Cheeseburger meals at McDonalds. This meal I explained to Larry made us even, all debts were paid, we were back on a level playing field. Sounds just and fair doesn't it?

I really have to get one of those good jobs working for the government, or the press don't I?

His friend David called, Larry put him on speaker phone and we had great fun about his(Larry's) 6,000+ photos suggesting that he get a bionic eye implant so that he could take pictures every time he blinked. For some reason, Larry laughingly ended the call. I mentioned to Larry that I felt that under different circumstances, David would have been a good friend of mine.

As every time on the way to my house from his, we stopped at our secret supply source for our respective businesses.

We arrived at the house.

It was so good to hold my wife, hug my mother and daughter, to give out the presents.

Karen had a good meal of fajitas waiting for us.

Jake my seven year old son got off the bus at our house, a little later. He is autistic and can't speak, but he has his ways of letting us know what he wants. For days after I left for Paris and Israel, he would put on his shoes, hand Karen's purse to her, take her hand and lead her toward the car. He wanted her to get me. After several days of the trip, he finally gave up.

I had promised him at least a thousand times before leaving that I would be gone a long time, but I would return. It was very important for me to survive the trip for that alone.

He was glad to see me but somewhat wired.

Around 4PM Larry had to leave which in its own way was part of my readjusting to "normal" life, if you can call it that. We had been together non stop from 7PM Friday, March 20, 2009 to 8 PM Wednesday, April 2, 2009. I somewhat missed the little dipstick. One of the amazing impacts of the trip was that we didn't have any fights or get really angry at each other the entire time. Any time that I was annoyed with him on this trip or any other time, I will assure you in the interest of fairness was, is, or will be his fault. Also to make sure that this account is understood in totally logical and objective way, any time that he was annoyed, is annoyed, or will be annoyed by me is due to deep seated character flaws.

Now to "the Shocking Story of my Daughter's Dog". I'll assure you that my mother, wife, numerous bosses, pastors, social workers in prisons,halfway houses, and addiction recovery centers, and many English teachers have attempted to polish my prose and teach good grammar to me, but all to no avail, as the title of this blog post shows to you.

I must admit that my main emotion on parting from the dog was relief. I walked him every 4 hours or so every night to prevent being surprised in the morning. If I didn't walk him, I must admit what he made me believe that he was almost human. Great fun to clean up.

Well he really missed me. Hank the dog went into decline while I was gone. Above are two pictures showing the changes in him.

The before picture shows him on the couch. Lest there be any confusion, he is the one seated, I am the one laying down.

The after picture shows how he looked when we returned from the trip. Pretty harrowing don't you think?