Well, with one flight instructor recovering from leg surgery and another instructor heading down to Florida today for awhile, my vacation is officially over. Of course Steve never had one, so fair is fair. :)
It was a busy day, for sure. I left the house fairly early and made it around to banks, post office, bulk mail place, a store, out to Glenndale and then to lunch. After lunch it was more running around, home to pick up some stuff, out to Kokomo, a stop at the video place, and back out to Glenndale where I flew with a student who had the perfect day to work on crosswind take offs and landings. We left Glenndale around 7:30 and went out to dinner, and made it home around 9 pm, more than 12 hours after we left. We got a lot done at least though.
A few days ago I was reading a Karen Kingsbury book that a friend gave me. Karen Kingsbury is a Christian author who almost always writes stories about very difficult situations dealing with children. I've read books by her that had to do with the Foster Care system, with adoptions gone wrong, with childhood abuse, etc. Those scenarios always are a little hard for me to read and deal with, because it's just one thing I can't hardly stand...innocent, good children in harm's way. She always ties her story up with a neat little bow, too, which is good, but also leaves me feeling something about the real life stories that do not end up tied in a neat little bow. This book followed that pattern, and was good as all hers have been. It was a story about a little boy whose mother was a flight attendant and she died in an airline crash. The write-up about the crash was fairly realistic, the mother's emotions as they were going down knowing she was about to leave her seven year old son alone in the world and his emotions as he dealt with his mother's death were really hard to read. I had to put the book down a few times and go do something else. If there was one thing that broke the 'spell' of the book though, it was the flying faux paxs. The other main character in the book was a pilot, and he was described as a big healthy strapping man who was so strong that he single-handedly pulled his plane out of a "death spiral". Er, okay. If by "death spiral" they mean "spin" or "spiral", it doesn't require any strength at all, and it's a one-man (or woman) job to recover. That line leaves you with the mental image of a guy putting his foot up on the dash and pulling with all his strength to bring the nose up and save the plane at the last second. That's highly dramatic, but terribly cheesy and wrong...I read that same line a couple of places in the book, and every time I did it was fingernails on a chalkboard to me, and definitely lightened the mood. There were others, but that was the biggest. Otherwise it was a good book, and good things came from bad and the sweet, smart, brave little boy lived happily ever after...
When I drove out to Kokomo airport today, the weather was odd. I was driving under blue skies, but you could see a little storm ahead and to the right. As I came up on the airport, it was the strangest sight, one you don't get that often on the ground. I could see one end of the runway just fine-the sun was shining on it. The other end of the runway and all the hangars disappeared into a gray wall of heavy rain, and you couldn't see through it. Soon I drove into it, and it looked like you were in the middle of the nastiest day in the world...except off to the other direction the sun was shining on the fields. It just looked weird.
Steve and I were sitting at the airport, and he said "So where are you taking me to dinner tonight?" I thought about it for a minute, then named a place that we've gone to maybe twice a year. He stopped, put his hand over his face and said "Man, we've been married for too long! I was thinking the same place." So we went and enjoyed, came home and watched a movie before bed. :)
Kaylee is doing just fine. So far so good as best I can tell! Cathy and crew have sent several photos of their adventures, and I'll probably put them up on Kaylee's site sometime coming up here. She's getting to help with the horses, dance, ride on a four-wheeler, play with cousins, see how lucky she has it as far as chores, and all manner of good things. ;) It's really almost disconcerting looking at that photo of her dressed up. She's in such an adult-looking gown, with her head up and shoulders back and confident graceful smile, and she looks like a...Lady. That's why I had to go back and look at the photos of her playing in the mud last month to reassure myself she's still a little kid, too! It's also a little odd with the house so quiet. Even though we're busy, it's still odd to not hear her music playing or her feet running around or the cartoons on in the background somewhere. It reminds us a little bit of how it felt, well, of how you can look around and see little kid things and little kid room and little kid clothes, but they are empty without the little kid him or herself in them. She is having a blast and growing and learning, and we are enjoying our time together too. It's still going to be good to have her back, though. :)
Well, tomorrow will be a flying day from pretty early through pretty late, so I guess I'll catch up to you tomorrow night...
No comments:
Post a Comment