Day 150: First-Rate Books & Last-Minute Travel

Posted on | January 29, 2008 |

Oh, my.  I can’t even begin to describe the day I’ve had today.  Ups and downs and last-minute schedule changes and general running around like a busy mom without enough hours in the day or tools in my belt.

The day started out quietly enough, though early because I took care of The Daughter’s early morning cross-town commute to school.  She drove.  Quite the excellent peak-rush-hour-on-the-highway driver she’s becoming.  I made it back home in time to give The Husband another break by taking care of getting The Son to his Tuesday classes.

I had planned on a few quiet hours at home to get some office hours in for my job, get some laundry and other household tasks completed, and make a few phone calls.  Nothing doing.  My mom called.

My mom just sold her house.  Surprised the heck out of all of us that it sold this quickly.  It was only on the market for two weeks!  My sister flew out on Sunday to help sort through things, decide what should be kept and moved, and what should go.  A good 98% of it has to go.  Today they called because they’d decided it would be helpful if I could come down and overlap my visit with my sister’s.  Ugh.  My husband’s a real trooper but taking care of both kids’ schedules alone is a monumental task.  Worst part was, I don’t want to be out-of-state on Super Tuesday.

All of the talking and pondering and talking some more ate up every single minute of my “free” time this morning.  Before I knew it, it was time to go gather The Son.  But I’d promised to stop by the bookstore beforehand so I dashed out the door to get that done on the way to his classes.

Barnes & Noble – $31.95
The bookstore had 5 different bindings / options for Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Ever have one of those days where nothing is simple or easy?  Not even the simple and easy things?  I finally decided on a hardback all-in-one edition.  The Son was delighted.  I was happy to invoke my 20% educator’s discount — saved $7.60.

As I was deciding whether to get three books or one, paperback or hardback, The Daughter called and asked if I could come pick her up from school.  Practice had once again been cancelled — this time because too many of the girls had begged off pleading too much homework.  They’re in the final stretch of a “block” (like a semester but shorter) and the Trigonometry and 20+ page research papers aren’t the easiest of subjects to wrap up on time without serious work and much stress.

I was happy to hear the there would be no practice but the logistics of having to pick up The Son at 2:45 and The Daughter at 2:45 in opposite sides of a very large, very congested metropolitan area are, well, not simple or easy.  On a mildly congested afternoon, the drive for a lead-footed driver takes 35-40 minutes.  When you have an annoyed 13-yo with a full bladder who fully expected a 12-minute drive home, the drive takes a little longer (because you have to stop back into the very same bookstore you left 15 minutes earlier so the boy can use the bathroom).  Today the drive took 50 minutes.  That meant that The Daughter was in no better mood when finally picked up than The Son had been when I told him he’d be spending an extra 1-1/2 in the car.  No one asked me how I felt about the whole arrangement.    

All that driving gave me a lot of time to think and I came to the conclusion that family has to come first.  So I started making mental plans to make the trip down to help my mom and sister.  The assumption had been that I’d drive — about a 9 hour one-way drive.  I was going to be one tired woman but no one could accuse me of not coming through.

The Husband surprised me, upon hearing my plans, by suggesting that I fly.  Those of you who fly on a regular basis know that with all of the current security measures and the state of our modern air-travel conditions, a 1-1/2 hour flight can take the better part of the day what with needing to be at the airport 2 hours before your flight.  On top of that, I have a 1-hour-plus commute just to get to the flipping airport.  Still, all of that sounds easier than making the drive on my own.  My poor middle-aged, post-stroke, fibromyalgia-suffering body takes a real beating on a solo 9-hour drive.  If one takes into consideration that I’ll be expected to be functional and helpful once I get there, I didn’t fight The Husband too much when he suggested flying.

Oh, and did I mention that flying scares the absolute bejebees out of me.  Really.  I. Hate. Flying.

Anyway, long story longer, tonight I made my second purchase of the day:

Airline — $245.50
Round-trip airfare that will take me out of here tomorrow night, give me five full working days to help my mom (three of which will overlap with my youngest sister) and bring me home to my “loving” family on Tuesday — hopefully in time to cast my ballot on Super Tuesday and have my voice counted in the primary.

Now that I’ve droned on much too long and stayed up much too late (especially since I have a very early wake-up call tomorrow morning and a very late flight tomorrow night), I will bid you all adieu.  I hope to continue to make daily $$ posts but it would be completely unrealistic to even pretend that I’ll try to post anything more complicated or thoughtful.  I hope to resume my not-so-regular regularly posting in a week or so.

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