Try Not To Cry, Mother

Early this morning, all too early if you ask me, Dave posted the following Chinese text to Facebook. Google translated it as “U.S. peace I.” I think that it is suppose to say, “I’m from the U.S., peace.” I’m guessing that one of his friends taught him this phrase.

美国和平了。香港我来了。

I read it, while sitting in a car on the roof of the Saint Louis airport’s parking lot. Anne and I were sitting there waiting for Dave to arrive. This is a long and somewhat convoluted story that has a chapter entitled “Get Me to the Church on Time” and another called “Get me to the Plane on Time”.

Dave in his many peregrinations, came to Saint Louis this weekend to attend a wedding. This wedding was a friend of a friend affair, with the intervening friend being a Rochester classmate. Friday night, the night before the wedding, Dave arrived in town, we took him out to diner and then he went out to meet with his friends. He returned home some time early Saturday morning. Anne and I went off biking to the Tour de Grove and upon returning home, found Dave preparing for the wedding. This is when Anne and him cooked-up Sunday morning’s activities. Dave left for the wedding and we for the ball game.

Saturday night was a late night, at least for me, so Sunday morning, when Anne’s ducks began to quack, came all too early. Don’t ask. We woke Dave with a phone call. He had crashed in the party suite after the wedding. Did I forget to mention that the wedding was held in Edwardsville? We drove to the airport from home, while Dave drove from Illinois. While we waited on the roof of the parking structure, Dave called, “Where are you guys?” To make a long story short, Dave was on the roof of Terminal #2’s parking structure, while we were on the roof of Terminal #1’s. I should point out that we entered on the roof of our parking structure, while Dave had to snake through his structure to get to the roof of his. You would think that while doing this, Dave would have begun to wonder, but as early and befuddled as I was, it must have been worst for him. We met up, Anne drove him to the correct terminal and I headed home.

From Saint Louis, Dave flew to Chicago and then on to Hong Kong. Actually, he is still flying to China, as I write this. It is a fifteen hour flight. Traveling halfway around the world is disorienting. After doing so, most people don’t know if it day or night. Dave, who is mainly nocturnal, may find his biological clock set to the diurnal half of the day. It should be a great adventure and we look forward to seeing him again and hearing all about it next week.