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Anatomy of A Holiday Adventure
Nov. 22nd, 2007 01:35 pmWednesday, Day Before Thanksgiving:
5pm: Sit on sofa, with ice pack on knee. Pie filling and crust are done; mom is on the road to our house, everything is on the path to smooth, successful, stress-free holiday.
5:25pm: Ask husband what he wants to do for dinner - several different leftover options are available. Discuss the relative merits of lasagne versus soup; start thinking about whether or not to make garlic bread.
5:27pm: Mom calls from on the road. Her car has broken down halfway through the 350-mile drive from her house to ours. Calm a slightly hysterical mom, while inwardly speculating on the drastic role reversal from about 13 years ago. After extensive catastrophizing, calming, and discussion of various solutions, mom reveals that AAA is on their way, and can tow her car to a place of her choosing. Suggest to mom that if they can tow her car to NJ, we can pick her up once she's somewhere safe, warm, and dry, and drive her back to our house. Mom agrees to this idea.
5:45pm: Discuss with husband exactly how we're going to manage picking up my mom, when we do not have a concrete place to meet her. Rejected ideas include:
1) Wait until AAA picks her up and deposits her somewhere (they have a known history of taking 2-3 hours to arrive, especially on busy travel days).
2) I drive, he stays home, I call him to get directions once I know where she is (my right knee is busted, and prolonged driving will make it worse).
3) He drives, I stay home (he is fighting a heck of a cold, and driving by himself while on cold meds has serious danger potential).
4) We borrow a GPS from a friend (she happens to be traveling, and not available to loan it).
6pm: Finally hit on the idea of driving together, and asking a friend with computer access and a cell phone to hunt directions up for us when we call them from the road with a concrete destination. Friend agrees. Engage in brief but heartfelt happydance of thanksgiving for friends, cell phones, MapQuest, and living in the age of communication.
6:15pm: Head out on the road to an unspecified destination near the New York-Connecticut border. At rush hour. On the worst travel day of the year.
6:20pm: Marvel at the eerie lack of traffic.
6:50pm: Discover that the reason there was no traffic anywhere else is because every single car in the state of Massachusetts is clustered within half a mile of Exit 11 on the Mass Pike. Grind to a screeching halt.
7:10pm: Realize that it has been quite some time since I heard from mom. Call her, and find that the tow truck has not arrived yet, but should hopefully be there within half an hour.
7:30pm: Traffic dissipates, only to be replaced by thick, oppressive fog.
7:35pm: Realize that we are driving in eerie pea-soup fog more or less right through the area where Stephen King set his incredibly creepy story, 'The Mist.' Start watching for tentacles on the side of the road, and rethink my decision to go see the movie this weekend.
7:55pm: Cross into Connecticut. Start thinking about pausing for food, since I'm past due to take a fistful of Advil and, at this rate, by the time we meet up with my mom every restaurant and most fast-food joints will be closed.
7:58pm: Cell phone rings. Mom is calling, the tow truck has arrived, but apparently they cannot tow the truck back to NJ without her. Briefly beat my head against the dashboard for having assumed that she had verified with AAA that they could do this before we had hit the road. Calm down a slightly hysterical mom, and engage in extensive discussion of our options. After running through several possibilities, mom apologizes profusely for making us drive halfway to her and decides to give up on the trip, go home, and spend the holiday with friends near her house.
8:05pm: Apologize profusely to husband for dragging him out on the wasted errand. Decide to make the best of a bad situation, and stop in at a restaurant we like in the area.
8:10pm: Arrive at the Traveller's Food and Books Restaurant and Used Book Store. Find out that they closed at 8pm.
8:30pm: Finally find a truck stop with a restaurant-like thing attached that is still open. Husband asks, 'Wasn't "The Mist" set somewhere like this?' Stare anxiously out at the roiling tendrils of fog and reassure him that it was set at a HoJo's, not a.... Country Kitchen Restaurant Thing. Hope I'm remembering correctly.
8:50pm: Pre-holiday feast of truck-stop chili fries and salad. Think longingly of leftover lasagne at home.
11:00pm: Finally arrive back home. Faced with a suddenly free weekend, start trying to salvage some positive results from the situation by figuring out alternate plans. Possibility for brunch with one friend, movies with others, and serious house errand accomplishment.
11:45pm: Mom calls, safely home, to apologize again for the complications.
Thursday, Thanksgiving Day:
8:45am: Wake up, and start baking. Plan on emailing friends to work out updated plans once the first pies are in the oven.
9:30am: Mom calls, with a surprise - she has access to a working car, and has decided that while it's too late to drive up today, she is going to drive up Friday and spend the weekend with us. Smile and agree, while inwardly re-scrapping all plans and adding 'clean house' back onto the to-do list. Give thanks that at least I haven't made any concrete arrangements for the suddenly-formerly-free time. Hope with all my might that the replacement car can survive the drive, and that we don't need to reenact this event on Friday.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating it, and here's hoping your plans are going more smoothly than ours.....
5pm: Sit on sofa, with ice pack on knee. Pie filling and crust are done; mom is on the road to our house, everything is on the path to smooth, successful, stress-free holiday.
5:25pm: Ask husband what he wants to do for dinner - several different leftover options are available. Discuss the relative merits of lasagne versus soup; start thinking about whether or not to make garlic bread.
5:27pm: Mom calls from on the road. Her car has broken down halfway through the 350-mile drive from her house to ours. Calm a slightly hysterical mom, while inwardly speculating on the drastic role reversal from about 13 years ago. After extensive catastrophizing, calming, and discussion of various solutions, mom reveals that AAA is on their way, and can tow her car to a place of her choosing. Suggest to mom that if they can tow her car to NJ, we can pick her up once she's somewhere safe, warm, and dry, and drive her back to our house. Mom agrees to this idea.
5:45pm: Discuss with husband exactly how we're going to manage picking up my mom, when we do not have a concrete place to meet her. Rejected ideas include:
1) Wait until AAA picks her up and deposits her somewhere (they have a known history of taking 2-3 hours to arrive, especially on busy travel days).
2) I drive, he stays home, I call him to get directions once I know where she is (my right knee is busted, and prolonged driving will make it worse).
3) He drives, I stay home (he is fighting a heck of a cold, and driving by himself while on cold meds has serious danger potential).
4) We borrow a GPS from a friend (she happens to be traveling, and not available to loan it).
6pm: Finally hit on the idea of driving together, and asking a friend with computer access and a cell phone to hunt directions up for us when we call them from the road with a concrete destination. Friend agrees. Engage in brief but heartfelt happydance of thanksgiving for friends, cell phones, MapQuest, and living in the age of communication.
6:15pm: Head out on the road to an unspecified destination near the New York-Connecticut border. At rush hour. On the worst travel day of the year.
6:20pm: Marvel at the eerie lack of traffic.
6:50pm: Discover that the reason there was no traffic anywhere else is because every single car in the state of Massachusetts is clustered within half a mile of Exit 11 on the Mass Pike. Grind to a screeching halt.
7:10pm: Realize that it has been quite some time since I heard from mom. Call her, and find that the tow truck has not arrived yet, but should hopefully be there within half an hour.
7:30pm: Traffic dissipates, only to be replaced by thick, oppressive fog.
7:35pm: Realize that we are driving in eerie pea-soup fog more or less right through the area where Stephen King set his incredibly creepy story, 'The Mist.' Start watching for tentacles on the side of the road, and rethink my decision to go see the movie this weekend.
7:55pm: Cross into Connecticut. Start thinking about pausing for food, since I'm past due to take a fistful of Advil and, at this rate, by the time we meet up with my mom every restaurant and most fast-food joints will be closed.
7:58pm: Cell phone rings. Mom is calling, the tow truck has arrived, but apparently they cannot tow the truck back to NJ without her. Briefly beat my head against the dashboard for having assumed that she had verified with AAA that they could do this before we had hit the road. Calm down a slightly hysterical mom, and engage in extensive discussion of our options. After running through several possibilities, mom apologizes profusely for making us drive halfway to her and decides to give up on the trip, go home, and spend the holiday with friends near her house.
8:05pm: Apologize profusely to husband for dragging him out on the wasted errand. Decide to make the best of a bad situation, and stop in at a restaurant we like in the area.
8:10pm: Arrive at the Traveller's Food and Books Restaurant and Used Book Store. Find out that they closed at 8pm.
8:30pm: Finally find a truck stop with a restaurant-like thing attached that is still open. Husband asks, 'Wasn't "The Mist" set somewhere like this?' Stare anxiously out at the roiling tendrils of fog and reassure him that it was set at a HoJo's, not a.... Country Kitchen Restaurant Thing. Hope I'm remembering correctly.
8:50pm: Pre-holiday feast of truck-stop chili fries and salad. Think longingly of leftover lasagne at home.
11:00pm: Finally arrive back home. Faced with a suddenly free weekend, start trying to salvage some positive results from the situation by figuring out alternate plans. Possibility for brunch with one friend, movies with others, and serious house errand accomplishment.
11:45pm: Mom calls, safely home, to apologize again for the complications.
Thursday, Thanksgiving Day:
8:45am: Wake up, and start baking. Plan on emailing friends to work out updated plans once the first pies are in the oven.
9:30am: Mom calls, with a surprise - she has access to a working car, and has decided that while it's too late to drive up today, she is going to drive up Friday and spend the weekend with us. Smile and agree, while inwardly re-scrapping all plans and adding 'clean house' back onto the to-do list. Give thanks that at least I haven't made any concrete arrangements for the suddenly-formerly-free time. Hope with all my might that the replacement car can survive the drive, and that we don't need to reenact this event on Friday.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating it, and here's hoping your plans are going more smoothly than ours.....
