As for the Japanese earthquake, Michelle says she was in the middle of buying our Christmas presents when it hit. Given that they go on longer the further from the epicenter you are (an S wave vs P wave thing) and that there were aftershocks piling on, she said that with a pause here and there it basically shook for twenty minutes. Carol King time.
Meantime, while we were at Richard’s folks’ yesterday, the phone rang: it was his older brother, checking in on them, telling his dad that he was in China on a business trip, the two of them chatting away for a little bit and then Dad offering the phone to MomH, too.
When Richard and I got home and went to bed at 3 am by the time zone we’d finally gotten used to, we set the alarm to be ready to pick up Michelle in the morning. The idea was that she would call when wheels touched down and we would drive up while she got through customs.
We waited.
Turns out her flight left an hour late, and only because her flight left an hour late did it happen that, with neither of them knowing the other was traveling much less where, Michelle found herself suddenly exclaiming, “Uncle GEORGE?!!” at Tokyo airport.
Of all the places to get to see him for the first time since the family reunion two summers ago. He had a stopover there on his way home. Out of all the places either could have been in the entire planet or even the directions they could have been looking in… What were the chances!