I just took my son and his partner to the Kalamazoo Airport for the first leg of their journey back to New York City where they live and work. They’d been here at River House for eight days, the longest they’ve ever stayed at one stretch.
Going into it, I thought we’d have tons of time to do all the things we’d mentally been adding to a list, given the length of their stay. But Keith and Chris brought Fred with them, as they always do, and Fred seems to be growing exponentially. He demands more and more attention.
Fred is short for fredflare.com, their online business. And since I’m the firm’s human resource manager, we do need to discuss things face-to-face. However, in the past, Fred took up an afternoon of maybe a three-day visit. This year he took up at least a part of every day of an eight-day visit.
I’m not complaining, as this is one sign of Fred’s growth and success. I’m not complaining that we didn’t do fun things together either, because we did. But what I notice, now that the house is quiet again, is that the list of things we wanted to do continues to grow. Just like Fred.
We want to go bowling again. We want to pick berries. We want to kayak to Clementine’s and eat on the patio. We want more bonfires, more grilling opportunities, more beer, more visits to local hamburger joints, more energy to stay up later at night, more talks. More time.
I guess that means the visit was a success.
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