Somewhere, beyond the sea...

I'm nervous.

In two hours, my son will board the MetroLink and head to Lambert, where he will take the first leg of his journey of a lifetime. From St. Louis to San Diego, in the company of my dear mother, whom I thank profusely because it halved the time it took for the ulcer to form, and then on to Hawaii. From there, he will go to Pearl Harbor, no less, and meet my brother, Mr. F-18 pilot, and disembark on the glorious USS Stennis, aircraft carrier extraordinaire.

Camera? Check. Camcorder? Check. Notebook to chronicle every step taken? Check. Oh. We need room for the boxer shorts. Squeeze that in there next to your deodorant.

EEEEEEEEEK. I'm still not as nervous as on his first date, but it's not 6:30 a.m. yet.

Am I jealous? Yes. Am I proud? Yes. I think his database for oral comm next semester is going to be quite full. Are his teachers cooperating? The two we've heard from...

Mr. Sapphire bought him a memory card large enough to hold 1000+ pictures. He's going to be quite busy when I show him his new Flickr account. His copious note taking will culminate in reading it to Mom, and we'll construct a bigger document about his trip. I will need details, because I know he won't put them in there, so it's going to be like this:

Him: "The boat is big."

Me: "How big? How far can you throw a football? Is it a boat or a fortress on the water? How long do you think it would take to run, full tilt, from bow to stern?"

Him: "It was windy."

Me: "How windy? Did it blow you on your butt? Did you try to throw that football and it get tossed down to the sharks? Did it almost pull the glasses from your face? Could you see between your hair? How windy is windy? Right-before-a-tornado windy or standing-behind-an-F-18-gearing-for-takeoff windy?"

Yeah. It's seriously going to suck to be Tiger's Eye. Authors are relentless in their pursuit of detail, and I am going to squeeze information. I had a talk with him last night. I told him that he'll probably go the rest of his life and meet maybe two people who have been on a Tiger Cruise. I asked him to "take us with him." That's all we want. We just want to know. Mr. Sapphire has been reading up on all the aircraft carrier stats and has already informed Tiger's Eye about the dangers of Navy living. I wish he hadn't mentioned the community showers. He might not get on the boat!

So, it's about time to go wake him up. I keep thinking and thinking about something he might need to take, but I really haven't got anything left to pack, I don't think. I have 50+ e-mails trying to coordinate this thing. I better have gleaned all the info from this.

Have a good time, babe. Remember as much as you can. You will never, ever have a chance like this again. Film the waves for me. Get a pic of your uncle next to his F-18. Shoot me an e-mail every so often, even if it's "Dude, I'm hurling up my socks."