in the longstanding tradition of homemade bittersweet sundaes in the last hours before she gets on a plane, we put on a modest display of ice cream, chocolate sauce, crushed walnuts, raspberries and a cherry on top. the photo was taken by nellie, because i was quivering with so much anticipation that my pictures were all out of focus.

at the airport, in defiance, we flaunted our frosty starbucks beverages before the boy, whose opinion is of the “damn american multinationals who think they can show the world how to make coffee” variety. “that’s why we’re not getting the coffee,” we had retorted, before flouncing off in the direction of the neon mermaid via the krispy kreme stall. so now we had a grande green tea frappacino, and a tall strawberries and cream frappacino — in fact nellie had ordered the new neopolitan frap, but the exhuberantly gay counter boy was far too busy being camp to put the chocolate and vanilla in, feh — and a small box of sour cream doughnuts and pumpkin spice doughnuts, for later.

two weeks ago when i made the doughnut dash while waiting for nellie to come through immigration, the featured-doughnut tray was bare, and i had been waiting weeks to try the special festive offering. “you don’t have the pumpkin spice doughnuts?” i asked. “um, not today,” said the counter girl. i was so surprised and disappointed that i could not get my question out: “why would you not have the featured doughnut!?” and then she said, “we usually have them, but somehow they didn’t show up today.” i was so surprised and disappointed that i could not get my question out: “what!? you don’t bake them here!?” and then she said, “oh, you like them?” and i had to express my disappointment at never having tried them, and my surprise that they hadn’t shown up today, and my disappointment at not getting to try them once again.

anyway.

we sat and watched some planes and then nellie held the baby for one last time, bopped her on the head and called out “babboo-babboo” before disappearing past the sliding doors with the last of the strawberries and cream frappacino. there was no extended bowing and waving today; there was a hungry baby to feed.