Mother, Are You Waiting? Father, Are You Pacing? I'm Coming Home

It's been a fabulous two months (9 weeks, to be exact), but it's time to go home.

It's my last day at the office. Alannah's packing our stuff. At about this time tomorrow, the Air France 747-400 will be slowly backing out of the gate at Terminal 2E at Charles De Gaulle, headed for sweet home California.

So we can go to the French consulate.

It's official: My work authorization came through, we're getting long-term visas, and are on our way to becoming actual residents of France.

We hear that when we come back here, we'll be greeted with government-issue stripey shirts, berets, and a carton of unfiltered Gauloises. I'll be required to grow a goatee, we'll both be required to undergo a regimen that will make us look feeble and malnourished, and summarily implanted with a chip that makes us hate work and government, and love vacationing for a month at a time.

All joking aside, this is where the reality of it all sets in. We're going "home" not to really go "home" but to get the necessary documents to live in our new "home." And then I'll have to change the name of this blog to "Omid at home."

See you on the other side...