The day I've dreaded has come. Maybe dreaded is too strong a word, but I've not looked forward to going to Singapore, despite my professions to the contrary. Everyone thinks I'm excited to be going home but I'm worried: will the kids and J find staying at Pine Grove too crowded? The house is old and cluttered and grimy now the maid is gone. Will J and my parents get along? Will that tension be difficult to manage? What will the children do for fun now they don't have many friends left in Singapore? Will they complain there's nothing to do? Will they even get out of bed before noon? Will I find it frustrating that our wishes, agendas and schedules will rarely coalesce and be guaranteed to clash? After all, this has happened with every trip in the last four years.

Anyway, I have not relished the prospect that this trip, which means such different things to each of us, could be disappointing to everyone in the end on some level. But here we are now.

Still, if beginning omens are worth anything, this departure was less stressful than those of previous years. Of course J had multiple chores which "had" to be completed, but we were more or less packed and ready to go by noon or so.

Pam and Jan as usual were troopers, bringing breakfast, washing up and driving us to the airport when it came time. Finally we are on our way. At our three-hour layover in JFK, Alexis was desperate to facetime with people at the party she was missing (which included her new boyfriend, Tucker) and. Izzy was super bummed that she didn't go walkabout with J and me and so missed a Selena Gomez sighting. I mean, she was this-is-the-worst-day-of-my-life typical Izzy bummed. Maybe I was premature in reading hopeful signs. Especially as it turned out that we had not ordered a vegetarian meal for Izzy on American Airlines, which was not inclined to find a solution (this is why one flies SQ if one has money), so she was reduced to eating the side dishes and cheese/crackers. She did it with very poor grace, I guess to punish us. Oh, forget it. I downed an Ambien and went to sleep for the rest of the 13 hours to Haneda.