Travel Day!  As Judy heads out, we’re comparing notes on details I’ve probably forgotten.  We haven’t been separated since we came to China.  I’m a little uncomfortable about leaving.  I know she’s a big girl, and everything, but it’s been a team effort over here for 8 months.

I grab a taxi and get to the airport in record time (1/2 hour).  Check-in is smooth, and I roll easily through security and immigration.  I’ve had a lot of recent practice working through this airport.  Just as the plane begins to load, I get a text from Lisa, our real estate agent.  She’s telling me the electricity and water will be turned off tomorrow (Tuesday) in our apartment building.  This is definitely a complication.

I hurriedly try to find out when, exactly, this will happen, and give her Judy’s phone number.  I also try to get the info to Judy so the two of them can communicate.  I’m about to be incommunicado (?) for 11-12 hours, till I get to San Francisco, and by then, Judy should be asleep.  I can’t believe this is happening the first time I leave.

Judy’s in class, so my texting skills are put to a major test, and not that successfully.  I’m just too slow.  I finally finish my texts on the plane with flight attendants glaring at my phone.  I can’t wait to find out how all this works out.  At least I received the information before I left.  If not, Judy wouldn’t have had any idea what was about to happen.  The text from Lisa wouldn’t have arrived to me in the US.  What a nice surprise for Judy the first morning I’m gone.