Today was the big day. And by big day, I mean mega, super-sized, everything we have been waiting for, big day. A year ago, at the end of the summer, we planned a big surprise, and brought both of my biological daughters out to surprise my foster daughter, who was vacationing at a beach resort north of here. They hadn't all been together in years, and I was completely committed to the secret, lamely finding excuses for my lateness when the girls missed their flight, and I couldn't drive up to meet my foster daughter until they made it here on the rescheduled flight. For weeks, I have been gathering my forces, talking to friends and family, and preparing a similar surprise. I had one daughter and four friends waiting at baggage claim, as were four people from his old office. After a year and a half, I figured a big greeting party was called for. My daughter wanted to come out a couple days early, to help me do the last few things that needed doing before he arrived. Since Monday, I have had to tell white lies, and only use the personal pronoun "I" in places that I really should have said "we." She helped me greatly, both in physical labor and in emotional support while I freaked out, waiting for the moment of arrival.
And that moment came early. We were still in the car, almost to the last stoplight, when the car announced his text, saying that the plane had landed nearly eleven minutes early. I started to panic and scream at traffic around me. When I pulled into the lane to get a ticket into the parking deck, I realized the truck I'd been trying to push faster with my mind was the group from his old office. We all made it inside, and gathered in baggage claim, and had time to talk a few minutes before he came down the hallway to where he could see us. The Bonfire leader helpfully pointed out, he was indeed smiling, which was exactly what I said I wanted yesterday.
It took an inordinately long time to collect both animals. The kitty who came with him arrived first, meowing her face off in her cage. I only saw a single picture of her until just a few days ago, so when I saw her in person for the first time, I didn't know what to expect. She is beautiful, and once she calmed down in her transition bedroom, she was cuddly and sweet. The new handi-capable dog is something else. He's got the cutest face, and he gets around much better than I expected him to. We have already had good moments and bad with our existing pups. A few disagreements, apparently over toys (that my dogs don't care about so much) and proximity to the parental units. Bump spent as much time as I would allow sitting on my feet, to prove that I was his mommy and no one else's.
We had to go to the vet immediately, to check in our little foreign travelers, and that took more than an hour and a half. The first thirty minutes were spent watching the man sleep in his chair, and even after the vet came in, we spoke quietly about therapies and treatments that might get the new dog out of his wheelchair and onto his own feet. The prognosis is mediocre, but not hopeless, and anything we do is going to be labor intensive and expensive. Updates after we consult a specialist.
Several of us made jokes about whether the new animals speak English. The line of the day was one of my friends at the airport, who leaned down to the new cat's cage, and said loudly and slowly, in a Texas accent, "Welcome to America!"
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