well, i can safely say that our personal hostage crisis has now ended after 72 hours. our two big boyz have been freed by united airlines and sent on klm around the world to come home to kathmandu after six months away.
josh and ez had been stuck in boston since friday when they arrived at logan airport to find that they didn't actually have their paper tickets and that the flight left 50 minutes early. ouch!
as a result, we were in airline reservation crisis mode over the weekend.
yet all had seemed so promising... i called the boys on my cell friday night (their friday morning) to just check that all systems were set to go. they were at the airport with an hour to spare, so i put down my permanent parental guard (that something would go wrong...), and headed off w/ ms. leah to meet shaku, utpal & caroline for dinner.
alas, the problems began soon after when i got a text message from my sister saying that the boyz had missed their flight!! i was reduced to monosyllabic terminology for the next couple of hours. quelle drag!
immediately i got the boys on the phone at the airport, but they were having no luck with the united folks finding their reservations in the computer system and, even so, it was already too late. the flight had departed for san francisco and beyond. they were grounded in a snow storm in boston...
with no great options, they retreated back where they had started at 5 am that morning to my brother bruce's home in newton. although, unfortunately, bruce and family were going away for the w/end, so josh & ez decided to go to their kathmandu friends sashi & jigme's apartment to regroup.
while back in k'du, not seeing other otions, with my sister claudia's help in philadelphia, we'd booked them on a gulf flight over europe to come on sunday -- but shaku said we might as well try to get the united tixs rebooked and save alot of $$$.
so, we spent much of the w/end trying to get them on a united flight on the 23rd (tuesday) which, to be honest, on friday & saturday seemed an eternity away. but, for a half a dozen reasons, by monday proved impossible.
so, in search of a united reissue, ezi trudged through the snow and sleet of a winter new england storm on both saturday and sunday. he literally spent 5-6 hours/day at logan airport waiting in 1.5 hour lines trying to get the tixs reissued, it wasn't happening. i would get up 2 or 3 times at night to speak to ezi while he waited in line or was speaking to the united staff. but for some reason (or none...), what we were being told in k'du by our travel agent was not squaring with the united agent's computer.
it was all one giant (and expensive...) glitch.
finally, on monday morning when shaku & i went to the travel agent on durbar marg, one quick look at the reservation and i suddenly realized that they were trying to book the boys on a flight on the 23rd when the tix actually expired on the 22nd. they were doing their best, but had missed the fact that the six month tix expired on the 22nd.
so, even with the best efforts and time passing, i gave up and gave in.
'ok, ok, ok, get me the quickest, cheapest flight as directly as possible to get my sons here ASAP.' all i could say was, 'i want my sons here with us'. it was the holidays. shakun's birthday was on the 25th.
not to mention that they only had two weeks vacation and they had been working so hard at school since august. they deserved their vacation here with us in kathmandu. they desperately wanted to be home and we desperately wanted them with us.
ezi at 16 had been doing an adult's work (and so compassionately) at the airport, while josh was assiduously filling out his college applications back in the apartment. when i told ez on sunday that he may have to go back early on monday to try one last time, he said, 'dad, i don't mind, as long as it's useful this time...' what a guy!
so, finally, when we realized that the missing united tix was more confused than we knew earlier, we punted. within a minute, we wrote a check to get the boys back on klm/gulf ASAP.
i just wanted josh & ez to wake up on monday morning knowing that they would, at last, be leaving boston and coming home.
and home they are!!!
they came in on wednesday afternoon, tired, beat, exhausted but thrilled to be back in nepal.
their mother and father are simply in parental heaven with the sound of their voices filling our home, once again.
joy!
whoever created family was truly a wise and compassionate soul...
being together again is the best xmas/hanukah gift we could imagine.
joy!
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