Would an international marriage survive more than a few years with botched plans like Steve's have been? You'd need a pencil & white-out to figure out his itinerary.
He left for the Phillipines today, supposedly. His leave was delayed in the first place because he says he's too big to sit in an aircraft's coach for 18 hours. I say c'mon... if you haven't seen your wife in three months, and get a two-week window to go down there, I say LIVE with the discomfort. I warned him that things would get very dicey in a hurry if he had missed that flight.
So what happens? The date is pushed off again because of a typhoon threatening the area. Not his fault, obviously. But as always happens when his travel plans turn last-minute, Northwest screws him out of preferred seating.
I drove him to the airport (ugh, me driving on an off-day) yesterday and thought: at last, peace & quiet... he shows up at the door again eight hours later... landing gear problem on the plane. How much more scheduling woes will he be able to handle? How much will his wife be able to handle? And how much of his yakking must I endure?
He actually just left a message now - apparently everything is okay. But due to the various nature of things, a two-week trip to the Phillipines will turn into as little as five days.
There's something to be said for preparation. There's also something being said about either proving or disproving the notion that long-distance relationships don't work. This one is as distant geographically as you can get. I will admire the two of them if they stick together through all this mess, which happens quite regularly.
And I would be amiss to not share a photo of the two of them... actually, two:
