The eagle has landed. Elvis is back in the building.We are back in Abu Dhabi.
We got back to Abu Dhabi last night: four people, eight suitcases, eight carryons, a duty-free bag o’booze, and assorted aches and pains from sleeping where god didn’t intend people to sleep: 37,000 feet above sea level.
Okay, it’s a lot of bags, but it’s nothing compared to the entrance we made last year, which I’m sure the luggage handlers are still talking about with horror. But yes, vows were made about packinglessnextyearforsure.
We spent today, the 29th, in a blur of jet-lagged exhaustion, exacerbated, in my case, by the fact that Caleb came into our bedroom about every thirty minutes, starting at 1:30 to loud-whisper MOMMY I DON’T WANT TO GET JET LAG. By 3:30, all vestiges of patience had worn off and I snapped: “you HAVE jet lag. THIS is jet lag and what do you want me to do about it?” Then, mommy remorse set in, I let him clamber into our bed and taught him how to count sheep in order to lull himself to sleep. Although in his case, he counted lego figures rather than livestock. I lay there and wondered at what age a person could responsibly give a child an Ambien. Or half an Ambien?
But of course, we don’t have any Ambien, so my musings were purely theoretical. When I told a friend today about my drug dilemma, he said “did you try Bambien? That’s Ambien for kids.”
Bambien. Josh, you’re fucking brilliant. Call Big Pharma in the morning and pitch that sucker.
We tottered through the day and took the boys to dinner at Olivella’s, the pizza place that opened near our apartment, which the boys claim is almost as good as what they have in New York. And walking home, through the damp soft air of an Abu Dhabi summer night, we saw a lopsided moon rising between the buildings.
Husband pointed to the moon. “That’s a gibbous moon,” he said to the boys. And then we laughed. A long time ago, on a New York evening, a similarly lopsided moon rose over a different set of buildings, on one of our first dates. “That’s a gibbous moon,” I said to him. Husband, being an English professor and general all-around smarty-pants, scoffed at the word “gibbous” having anything to do with moons. Reader, he didn’t believe me. But dear reader? Words are my thing – and love the word gibbous. When he realized that I was right, Husband says he had the first flash that maybe he’d met his match.
And match we did. Fourteen years ago, we got married. I don’t remember if it was a gibbous moon that night, but matching my words with his was one of the smartest choices I’ve ever made. Happy anniversary, Husband: our second year of Abu Dhabi life, our fifteenth year of marriage, yet another gibbous moon. It’s going to be a good year.
Photo Credit: DAVID NUNUK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
