Note To Self

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My 17 year old daughter has been away for almost 3 months. She arrives home from Austria tomorrow evening. I am almost giddy with impatience... I can't wait to hug her neck, hear her German, and eat the chocolate that we all assume she'll have in her carry-on case.

She owns an Ipod dock/clock radio that she didn't take with her. I think the 3 year old messed with it because it started going off every night around 1 a.m.

It's loud. Extremely loud. Yet, I am the only one that can hear it... from the other side of the house, through two wooden doors.

I've tried messing with it myself, in the dark and with great hand-scrabbling exasperation, feverishly trying to get "Oh Mandy" to stop blaring before my head explodes.

I've woken my 15 year old to ask her how to turn it off but she just cried out something about kittens and rolled over again. The strange thing is that by morning I cannot remember to ask my husband to reprogram the blasted thing.

Tonight it was playing some death metal song. Seriously, what possessed radio staion plays Manilow one night and death metal the next? So I'm posting this at 1:30 a.m. as a note to self to fix the Ipod dock during the day.

Because, as I stand in the airport hugging my long-missed daughter, I don't want to say:

Yesterday's a dream I face the morning,
crying on a breeze the pain is calling
Oh Mandy.

I think that might confuse her.


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