So did I jump him or not… (for the inquiring minds that want to know...)

Dear Friends;

I promised in my last Blog that I would reveal the success or failure about the proposed jumping of a Dear Friend that had traveled a great distance, that I have not seen in ages, that is a silly nut much like myself… This is where I do just that…

Originally I posted a question on a Tribe asking HOW to jump my friend… For those of you who did not see the thread, I am including below, just my initial post. This way all of my Dear Fiends are on the same page together…



My Post:

I have this really great friend flying into town on Friday… And I really want to jump into his arms when he gets out of the terminal… BUT… I have never done that to someone before… And don’t know if I can without knocking him over…

(He is a really good sport and if I did knock him to the ground, then he would just tease me relentlessly and we would laugh until we cried for years to come, so it’s not really that I am thinking that I shouldn’t…)

It’s just that I don’t think he would expect something like that from me. So it would take him off guard… and he would be tired from the traveling and the late hour… (Oh and I am taller than he is by an inch or two, though he may have me by 20 lbs or so… And while I have leapt into a man’s waiting arms in Ballet, this running, jumping, leg wrapping about the waist thing is entirely different…)

Can this work? Any tips on making this attack more successful?

(The bragging rights about “My friend threw herself at me” are too good to pass up… We are the silly, crazy, anything goes sort of friends… And while I would love to knock his socks off, I don’t relish the idea of knocking him off his feet…)
So the advice came in… And I waited…



Back to the Regularly Scheduled Blog:

I made this huge white balloon hat and wore crazy plaid pants to the airport… I paced up and down the terminal in wait. I hate wait…

His plane was delayed… I called a friend who worked at the airport and asked him where to best accost my Dear Friend… I received the information and rallied to the new location… And I waited…

A little boy about two kept eyeballing my enormous hat. Passersby gave me curious looks and laughed or gave me strange looks and gave me a wide birth. The bevy of limo drivers holding their signs with various names on little placks and pieces of paper were highly entertained by my antics and impatience. I gave the little boy my balloon hat and waited in a strange state of blissful agitation. I hate wait…

The text messages started arriving from my Dear Friend letting me know that his plane had landed, heightening my nerves and excitement… I stood off to the side and peered up to the glassed mezzanine above me and finally spotted my prey… And still I waited…

I love how the way a person moves is so distinctive. That the way they pick up their feet, swing their arms, hold their shoulders, or keep up a certain pace allows for such easy identification. It was how I was able to pick out my five-year-old nephew out of about five hundred bustling, rambunctious school kids when I was giving my best Aunt LaLa impression of Mommyland cab driver this past fall… Picking out my Dear Friend out of fifty ambling, tired travelers was a piece of cake… All I had to do was wait… I hate wait. I really do…

Down the escalator he rode and right by me he passed, turning in the other direction, away from me… So intent on getting to his luggage was he that he never even saw me… And then I realized that I had to get to him before he got to the luggage. If I did not, there would be no chance at all in the jump of hugs like they do on TV. Now I admit, I started in on this whole thing knowing that it would more likely be something out of “I Love Lucy” or “The Three Stooges”… But TV is still inspiration, even in it’s silly folly of the whimsical. So I stopped waiting and started dashing…

Across the section of baggage claim that he had already covered… I will be smart to remember in the future, that even after a long day of travel and cold and being tired, my Dear Friend can move really quickly… I would do well to think that in ordinary circumstances he most likely could cover twice as much ground as I can in half the time… I would do well to remember to share whatever it is I have rather than to take off running as I have done in the past when I am feeling feisty… But I digress…

As I caught up to him I realized that I was behind him and while tackling someone from behind is a good thing, tackling someone who is not expecting it from behind, while they have a backpack that most certainly holds a computer strapped to them is not at all a good thing. Can you just see it my Dear Friends? The inside lineman pouncing on the poor QB while he is dancing on the field holding the glass football shaped trophy shouting out to the crowds in excitement that he is so happy that he won and he is going to go to Disneyland? That would just be poor form of the lineman to forget that the game is over and he lost his chance to take the flying leap at his target… (Can you tell Superbowl Sunday is just around the corner? I digress again…)

So… I slipped up next to my Dear Friend and walked shoulder to shoulder with him for several paces. I was most certainly in his physical space for being a stranger… And the look on his face was priceless. It was fleeting and barely there it passed so quickly by, but there was the tiniest flash of shock on his face… And then the overwhelming expression of total happiness completely replaced any trace of any other thought or expression. He was vibrant and alive and so glorious we started giggling…

And giggling… And giggling…

I may not have successfully completed my first attempt at running into the arms of a dearly missed loved one, even in the comical sense… But the greeting was everything I could have hoped for and more. We giggled like we were up to something and it must be either very good, or no good at all. We were like that for the whole visit. I kept waiting for it to subside. Even after he is returned home to the cold… I keep waiting for the calls to be more somber, the messages more mundane, the e-mails more ordinary… But we just keep giggling… And so I wait…

I like wait…