Day 217: Alone, Claire Needs Attention

It is hour 22 of flying (hour 34 of the journey at large), becaue there is no really good way to get from Nairobi, Kenya to the Spring Break capital of the world, and my extended family´s choice reunion spot: Cancun, Mexico.

Here are some of the things that have happened:

In Zurich, I had to go into a dark room to hold up the plane for a search of my bag, after answering to honestly that I had not watched the 68 year old Kenyan grandmother at the church wrap up the bags of spices and curios she was giving me to give to her daughter living in California. "She is a missionary, it cant be something really bad," was my pleading attempt to the officials that went unanswered. I kind of liked the whole experience though, because they asked lots of personal questions and I got to talk about myself.

When I reached the USA, no one questioned me at all about my passport, which made the homecoming rather uneventful. It was also very reminiscent of when Lara and I were in the Cairo airport - video camera and all - practically begging any customs official in the country to say, "You were born in Egypt?!!" and then engage us in some interesting discussion about how unusual Lara is.

I went looking for US Weeklys, to learn that the last great bastion of young married and happy about it blonds in Hollywood have called it quite: Reese and Ryan. I will speak for all my college friends now when I say that, back in 1999, after watching the graphic scene between the two in Cruel Intentions no one was that surprised that she was knocked up with little Eva. CNN was on also, where I learned the Balco news that Greg Anderson, Bonds trainer, is back in jail for the third time. I was happy that I could have some Balco related greeting for my father when I meet him in the airport tomorrow.

I went to the chapel in the Dallas Airport (there is one in every terminal, apparently), where you are not allowed to sleep. While sitting there, a Mexican woman came in looking for passport control, which they had told her was in this room. The man praying in the corner on the rug was not repsonding, so I took hold of the situation, explaining that this was indeed a chapel, and not passport control. She crossed herself and left.

Now I am on a plane to Mexico, finally getting the attention I need from a trilingual child, Maria, who pisses me off because she speaks English, Arabic and Spanish and is only three. She is cute though, and I had a good time watching her try to zip up her sweater for ten minutes. She was unsuccessful, because her fingers don{t work good yet. She is reading this as I write, but I think we can be fairly certain she does not comprehend the complexities of my verbal diarrhea.

It is probably time for me to hang out with someone besides my own mind.

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