Kismet

Damn it.

I white knuckled it all the way home in the rain and ice and fog. Picture this with me if you will: Me, driving my dark blue 1996 Cadillac which bears a striking resemblance to one of those funeral limos they pack the family into and drive them to the burial...sidetracked...anyway driving my Cadillac in the pouring rain at 10 p.m. after a clinical shift at the hospital 45 miles away with

ONE.

Windshield.

Wiper.

And it was on the passenger side. I was practically sitting on the console praying I wouldn't die in some tragic accident. Luckily for me no one in their right mind was on the road. So I drove South on Highway 69 for 30 miles without encountering a single car.

I have to tell you I have never been so glad to see the seed corn plant/factory at the interchange close to my house as I was tonight. I could see it through pouring rain. It looked like a very large spaceship through the fog. Any other day it would just be light pollution but today it was a beacon in the night.

The long drive made me want to take a little trip down memory lane because the weather is so much nicer there than it is on Highway 69.

Let me take you back.

The first time my dear husband (then acquaintance) went to Iraq it was January 2003. He started emailing me once he got on ship. Just friendly, someone to email back and forth. It progressed into a daily, sometimes multi-daily email conversation over the next seven months, and I finally saw him when he arrived home on leave late July 2003. We saw each other for 3 days.
He emailed me immediately when he returned to California and I presumed we would continue our flirtation.

Then, the emails stopped. I would go check everyday, hoping I would hear from my friend(?). Nothing. I came down with mono and was sick for weeks, gargling lidocaine mouthwash and moping around the house. I even watched the Yankees in the World Series because it reminded me of him. My friends grew weary of hearing about him, and about how I *obviously* wasn't hung up on him.

I was breezy.

Finally, after (3) months of waiting I received an email, as if no time had elapsed at all. Did I forgive him, you ask? A stronger woman than I probably would have told him to go to hell after his unexplained absence.

But me? I emailed him right back.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for a man in uniform. The exact reason for his absence over email is still a matter of great debate. He did break his jaw and have it wired shut during those months. But like I tell him, his hands weren't broken...

Sometimes it's hard to believe all this started with one e-mail 7 years ago:

1/10/03
Hi Kara,

Sorry it has been so long, but I have plenty of time now on ship. So I hope to talk to you a lot. This is my new address so I would like to hear from you. Here are some pictures of my new home.
my lunchroom
my hallways
and my bed
Nice living space huh? I will talk to you later.

Tony