I want my baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back I want my baby back...

Walter came home last Thursday. Today is Tuesday and he's already dispatched and leaving again.

But we got a lot done this time. Unlike his last time here. He came home for Christmas - a rare event - and promptly went to bed, sick to death with an infection. Poor guy! it was awful. He finally got noticeably better the day before he left.

Such is life with a long-haul trucker.

I miss him already and he hasn't even left yet. Bustling back and forth, loading the car with clean clothes and deep-discount canned peaches and such... --Can you think of anything I'm forgetting? he just asked. --No. But there's always something.

Which is true.

He's gone from being a nervous and uncertain, unaccustomed traveler, to being an efficient unflappable one. Nice. He knows so well that the consequences of forgetting something are usually not a big deal. It's not that he can't buy peaches on the road, for instance. It's just easier in a car, at home, than driving a big truck into an unknown parking lot that's really built to accommodate cars, not big rigs. If he forgets to sign something while home, I have his full power of attorney. I'd rather he do his own signing, though. It just makes things go more smoothly. But the POA means the consequences of our forgetting to have him sign something are minimal.

This all feeds back into learning to live a non-emergency life. Both of us.

We sure enjoy ourselves more on his trips home now. And he's decided to come home more often, for shorter periods, than for a week or two every couple of months.

Our flat-rate cell phone plan costs about $70 a month. Calling each other is free. This is a very good thing indeed, because we spend as much as 6000 minutes a month talking to each other. Some calls last a minute. Some last hours. But it's usually at least five or ten calls a day. It makes all the difference in the world.

And why am I blathering on about this stuff that's only interesting to me and to Walter?

Because it takes my mind off his leaving. He hasn't even gone yet and I miss him already.

I want my baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back I want my baby back...