Through a tunnel darkly

You blip-people really know how to make a person feel welcome! I am overwhelmed, touched, awed, and humbled by your generous responses to yesterday's blip. I love you all for your hearts, stars, and helpful comments.

I want to respond to each person, especially those who have offered to meet, house, feed, or go adventuring with us, and all of you who are hanging the bunting for our visit! Doing my homework.

However at the moment I am very busy being a dotty, dazed, and inadequate Baba. Bella was up late last night, and we were both a bit groggy this morning when I had to take her to pre-school in a part of town where I had never been before, driving her daddy's car in rush hour traffic during a pelting-down rainstorm, with no cell phone or GPS/SatNav. I got hopelessly lost on three different expressways and ended up wandering around suburban neighborhoods full of cul-de-sacs and dead ends. I felt like a wet, elderly, and very addled rat in a Rube Goldberg maze. I suggested we try screaming in the car, which relieved the tension a little and made us laugh.

In the end I got her to school nearly half an hour late, and when I fumbled again through the streets and tunnels and finally staggered back into my apartment weak-kneed, I found her socks on my bed and her toothbrush still in her suitcase. I had delivered her to school on a breakfast of grapes eaten in the car, with unbrushed teeth, inadequate clothing, hoarse from laughing. I had just enough time for another cup of tea before heading out into the rain to find the place again and bring her home. After that, the day improved. I'll be back with comments after one of her parents returns. Till then, I need to do this Bella-thing full-time.