Who'd have guessed

I was chatting on the phone the other day with a good friend who commented that it must all be kind of surreal to be back in the States all of a sudden, after so long, and wasn't it quite odd waking up in America...Arizona, no less. (She moved from Seattle to Texas a few years ago all of a sudden herself so knows something about this feeling of displacement.) I quickly denied any loss of equilibrium, and at the time really meant it. I didn't feel out of sorts of like I was in the 'wrong place'. But waking up today, somehow it's all very strange. I feel like we're on another planet. Is it a terrible thing to admit that I really do miss being 'elsewhere' and as anonymous as any westerner can ever be outside the borders of their own nation?

For all of my whinging about life in India or Nepal, or wherever - it somehow felt much less...boring...than the middle of nowhere Arizona. Sticking as best I can to my 'it's all for a reason' philosophy I'll keep my more negative observations to myself and just say that we are *so* much looking forward to cutting out of here in a few months. Still not sure where we'll plunk down next, I'm eyeing houses on the Washington coast as well as the eastern side of the state - nearer to my parents.

Hamid and my dad have bonded over my husband's new infatuation with gigantic RC airplanes. They're really beautiful, expensive toys and as they were all illegal in Iran have become a major focus of my beloved's spare time. My dad, ever so much cooler than he would appear to be, spends early Sunday mornings in the frigid desert air learning to navigate the Arizona skies with my husband.

They've just gone in together on an airplane with a pricetag that made me gasp. The joint purchase means we are, essentially, in league with my parents at least for the next couple of seasons. And, with the baby coming, that's just fine with me.