The trip.

The best thing about today being today is that it's the closest we've been yet to 7:40 p.m. next Tuesday, which is when our return flight will land. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning (hours before Baby Nonny usually wakes up) for a time zone two hours ahead of us with a two-hour layover on the way. What was I thinking when I scheduled that flight??

I'm dreading this--and the travel is a mere slice of the entire dreading pie I have here in front of me. Other factors:

• I'm getting sick. I've had a conspicuously sore throat for days, a headache, a runny nose, and waaaay swollen lymph nodes. As a rule, I behave rather badly when sick, in spite of my valiant efforts to do otherwise. And a tendency toward bad behavior isn't going to be at all helpful to the situation I'm about to walk into.
• When we planned this trip two months ago, I felt like I'd timed it perfectly since it fell just between all our other obligations and smack dab on Father's Day. And then the father ran away. So instead of spending Father's Day with the one father we rarely get to see, we will be spending it with (a) no fathers and (b) a woman who (rightly) cries nightly because HER FREAKING HUSBAND RAN AWAY. ARGH! Excuse the minor outburst.
• I will have to endure more assigning of the baby's physical features and general behavior to the Nonny genes. This is much more annoying than it sounds. Norwegian lips, anyone?
• And, finally, my relationship with the MIL is really one that is best maintained under bright, sunny, and short circumstances. (This is at least partially because the woman does not listen to a thing that you say.) Thus the enormity of the situation presents itself: her husband has left her; she has no children at home; we are staying for six days. There will be no brightness. There will be no sunniness. There will be no shortness.

There will be much guilt (how can you possibly dread a visit to someone who so desperately needs it?). There will be much biting of tongues behind fake smiles (ha. yes. Nonny toes. oh. yes. Nonny eyes. yessirree, bob. Nonny earlobes. tee-hee. Nonny voice. et cetera.).

Well. I can say this: it's closer now to 7:40 p.m. on Tuesday than it was when I started. Fifteen minutes is nothing to sneeze at.