My mom has really be patient with me on this trip. She isn't much of a traveler, city person, walker or foodie, but she's indulged in all of those things in the past week. I almost killed her today driving on the highway (hey, I am out of practice and this rental car had a killer blind spot--I didn't see the guy) and she was totally cool about it.
I have taken her to wedding venues that she has said resembled "basements," "train stations," and "horse carriages." Here is a woman who would like nothing more but to see her youngest daughter get married in an ivory white wall-papered ballroom on a manicured New Jersey property brimming with miles of green grass and flowers. And here I am, taking her to the murder capital of the United States to check out a dark and moody venue on a garbage ridden street across the street from a scary abandoned building.
I listen to her on the phone telling her husband, "Young people have a different style. They don't want traditional. They want everything to be cool." She said that in Polish except the word "cool" which sounded funny to me.
She's ready to go home.
But the weather has other plans. Thanks to a blizzard on the East Coast, we were forced to sit in the airport all afternoon (on the only sunny day since we've been here) only to learn that our flight was canceled and that the next available flight for us is on Sunday! The worst part about it was that the flight isn't even direct--we have to stop in Houston before going back to Newark (the next available direct flight was on TUESDAY), and it is supposed to continue snowing all weekend on the Northeast, so there is the chance we may be stuck in Houston come Sunday.
Christmas is around the corner, my mom's got a lot of preparing to do, and I think she's done traveling, cities, walking, eating strange food, and non-traditional wedding venues.
"If we get stuck over in Houston, I will be very depressed," she tells me.
My feeling is like hey, we're here, there is nothing we can do about it, so let's just enjoy. There's something fun about living in the unexpected. Besides, wouldn't you rather be in New Orleans than on a plane during a snow storm? And the best thing is that even though we're stranded and normally we'd be responsible for our hotel, my mom is a crazy pimp, so we called her "Harrah's host" and while he couldn't give us rooms at the casino, he could give us two complementary rooms at the Sheraton across the street. So really life isn't that bad at all.
I just want to be home for Christmas. And for our family, that means Christmas Eve.
No comments:
Post a Comment