He’s BAAAAAAAAAAACK!

Kurt is home!!!!!!

It was such a crazy day yesterday. Remember the original plan, where I was to leave the house around 4pm either on the ferry or driving around, to make it to the airport by 7pm?

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

After art class, I convinced my friend C (the art teacher) to come over and keep me company.  We chatted a bit with another mother there and let Grace and her son race off some energy, and finally C and I headed up to my house.

I gave her the grand tour of my house — all fifty cents’ worth.  As we sat eating lunch, my phone rings.

It’s Kurt, telling me that he has a ticket in hand and will be boarding the plane soon.  It was 12:30pm at that point.  He got onto the 1 o’clock flight and would land at 4!!!

This meant I had to race around like a madwoman to get Gracie ready to go and to change into my pretty dress.  I got so distracted by everything that was going on that I forgot to bring my two miniature American flags we were going to wave as Kurt disembarked the plane.  Oh well.

There was simply no time to figure out the ferry schedule.  So I drove around, encountering very little traffic.  Once at the airport, I asked the Alaska Air ticket counter lady if I could get a pass to get through security in order to meet Kurt at the gate.  The TSA now allows spouses of deployed servicemembers through to the gates.

As we sat and waited for Kurt’s plane to arrive (they had landed on time, but it took them a while to get to the gate), a girl overhead me telling Grace we were picking Kurt up, so she asked how we got through security.  We started talking, and she offered to take some photos of us as Kurt came through the gate.  (You can see more of her shots on my Flickr page.)

The wait was killing me!!  I didn’t see any other wives at the gate, although there were three other guys from Kurt’s ship on that flight.  Then again, I wouldn’t have recognized them anyway.  But finally, finally, Kurt came through and we were reunited!!!

It was so very exciting.  I should have hired a brass band for the occasion.

We headed southward out of the city, getting stuck in major Friday-afternoon-getting-out-of-the-city traffic, but since we were together, we didn’t much mind.  At first, Grace was really freaked out by Kurt.  She let him hold her at first, but then she had enough of that and wanted me to hold her.  I carried her for a little while, but I had heels on and just couldn’t do it anymore.  She screamed the whole way out of the airport because she wanted me to pick her up and I wouldn’t.

But after just a little while, Grace totally warmed up to Kurt.  They’re now sitting on the couch, cuddling together and watching the preschool PBS channel.  Kurt is loving every second of it too!

We also went to the mall on the way home, since we were there.  The funny thing is, I thought we were going to leave with new shoes for Kurt, new clothes for Grace, and nothing for me!! *wink*  But then we headed out through Nordstrom’s, and Kurt saw this extremely bright and obnoxious eyeliner at the MAC counter that he knew I would love.  So he pointed it out to me, and I just had to get it.  The MAC counter was extremely busy; trying to ask a question of one of the MAC ladies was nearly impossible.  I wasn’t sure what color eyeshadow and bottom eyeliner to wear with bright-ass turquoise.  Finally the lady recommended black eyeliner on the bottom and a very neutral shadow for the lids.  As all this was going on, there was a very brightly colored girl next to me checking out all the makeup on display.  She had pink hair and several tattoos on her face and neck, which is fine if that’s her thing.  But the more I watched her out the corner of my eye, I realized she was stealing the testers.

EWWWWWWWW.  We were in the Tacoma Nordstrom’s, for crying out loud.  We weren’t at some high-end mall where only the richest folks shop.  So the likelihood of people using dirty hands to try out the testers were quite high.

The first time I noticed something, I saw her stick her hand into her very large tote bag that was open at the top, and I heard something click against something else, like two pots of eyeshadow hitting one another.  I gave her the benefit of the doubt, however, and ignored it.  Then she started exclaiming over the pots of eyeliner, “Oh, isn’t that cute??  I love that color!” and the next thing I knew, her hand was dropping more stuff into her bag and there were fewer eyeliner testers on the display.

As the woman rang up my purchases, I made a beeline to the other side of the counter where the registers was.  I signed the slip and quietly informed the MAC lady that the woman was stealing the testers.  She said okay, and I went on my way.

I don’t think they did anything about that woman, but at least I did the right thing by letting them know.  They can choose how they handle it.

But I am somewhat surprised that they were so easygoing about it.  Maybe they’ll just inform security and watch her on the monitors from now on.

Kurt’s home!!!!