Bye Bye Benny

The next two weeks will be slim pickings for the Benny Blog, the Ostensible Subject having been boxed up and shipped off to Colombia in response to what was billed as "overwhelming family pressure." Catalina took charge of the delivery, of course, and I would have accompanied them were it not that overwhelming family pressure stops just shy of the nuero: we are welcome, but in the last extremity, expendable.

Benjamin, it turns out, is a natural traveler. Catalina decided to leave from Washington D.C. instead of Pittsburgh so that we could indulge in the nostalgia of a return to our favorite Ethiopian restaurant, a dive in Adam's Morgan where we used to get loaded on mead every time I'd pick her up from the airport back in our courting days in Charlottesville. The allure of the return was strong enough that we decided to risk pissing off Zoogle with a five hour car ride. But Z. took it like a champion, sleeping four hours and delivering unintelligible traffic reports for the remainder. That was Sunday. On Monday, Catalina undertook what I assumed was going to be 12 grueling hours of solo plane travel with a howling baby who would be dropping his binki on the ground, dirtying his diaper, swearing at security, and generally causing pandemonium. But once again, Zoogle surpised: he flirted shyly with security, made cute faces at the seatmates, smiled coyly at the stewardess and watched in meditative silence as the sun fractured into pieces on the clouds over the Carribean.

The bad news is that I may never see him again. Several days ago Catalina gave me a frantic call at midnight, sputtering something to the effect that the new Child Abduction Law stipulates that no child, regardless of nationality, shall leave the country except in the presence of both parents, unless he is also accompanied by a signed, translated, and notarized permission note from the other, along with an original copy of the birth certificate. I think the case is hopeless: even if I comply, what Colombian official will believe that such a beautiful child belongs to a gringo?