All quiet on the western front

OK, I've been gone since Friday and now it's Monday. Apparently all is going really, really well back on the home front. I talked to Riley Saturday night from my crummy hotel room in the Shenandoah Valley. As soon as she heard me on the speaker phone, she said "Mama." This is a major victory for me, because she very rarely calls me by name. I really thought I was going to cry.

Then she said something incoherent about apples. I tried to imagine what she could have to report about such an exciting fruit, but I really didn't come up with much. I assume my mother had taken her out to the back yard to survey the bird-inflicted damage on the 20 or so fruit that are weighing down the thin branches of our young tree. Thanks for the newsflash, girl. Then she said night-night and bye-bye. I thought I was going to cry again.

I'd skipped out on carousing with my peers and the Brits conducting our weekend training. Back in my younger, wilder, single days, I lived in bars. And I thoroughly enjoyed this hilarious group of ex-British Marines and SAS who were going to great lengths to help us learn how to protect ourselves in hostile territory. But the most charming accent and greatest stories in the world couldn't compete with a chirpy little voice on speaker phone garbling something about fruit.

Other than extremely lax enforcements of nap time, I have no concerns about the management of my progeny in my absence. I know she's happy and having a great time with her grandmother. I do still have problems with that absence. I found myself scrolling through digital photos of her as a career diplomat now employed by a private think-tank explained exactly what's gone wrong in the Middle East and how to fix it.

Oh well. Everybody else was taking notes. Surely someone will share. For me, it was far more important and engaging to view pictures I've seen eight million times just so I could feel close to my little girl who's so far away from me for the first time.