I’m not sure, but I think I’ve been awake 32 of the last 36 hours. My mom and I made it to Dublin safe and sound, albeit, the trip was not as leisurely as I had hoped. My flight was delayed, then canceled, then un-canceled, which cut a good two hours out of my layover (I had scheduled three). What was meant to be a slow dinner at the Atlanta airport ended up being a quick stop at the food…
This is possibly going to be the most boring post ever. I’m not joking. Spreadsheets should be your best friend. Seriously. Have I lost you yet? Maybe I should re-frame this post as “How I Picked Our Tour of Ireland…Using Spreadsheets.” When my mom first decided she wanted to do a guided tour of Ireland, I knew there would be some anxiety when it came to the actual act of choosing a tour. My mom likes options, and even if…
*I wrote this last week, but for reasons that will be obvious at the end, I’m not posting this until today. Mom’s birthday tour of Ireland is just over a week away. I can count the number of days on my fingers (no toes required), and the pile (as my family affectionately calls the stuff you want to take on a trip) is growing. Over the last month and a half, I’ve been receiving updates from my mother about what she’s…
Writing a check is pretty uneventful stuff. But as I was writing out the date yesterday, looping the “J” of June, I thought, “Today is the first day in 96 years that my Granny hasn’t drawn a breath in this world.” It was a strange thought to have. I pulled back the pen and looked at the date for a moment: June 10, 2015. My grandmother passed away Tuesday. It wasn’t an unexpected death. She had had a stroke not…
Remember the good ole days, when the internet didn’t exist, and flights were purchased over the phone? I remember my mom calling several airlines to inquire about price, making the purchase over the landline, and then mailing my brother (and eventually me) a plane ticket so we could fly home from college over Thanksgiving break. The internet has changed how we book flights in tremendous ways. Now, it’s easy to shop around. You can go directly to the airlines or…
First, an apology. Mom, I’m sorry. I’m going to bring up the shoes. You know the ones. I also apologize for everything else. Love, Your Baby Girl * * * A little back story on my relationship with my mom. We get along great! We have so much fun together! My husband loves her, and she loves my husband! And sometimes, I want to kill her. Ok, so now that I’m in my thirties, I rarely want to kill her,…
Part of my job requires me to work front of house at a theater before musical performances. While this means I am qualified to answer questions about the programming, artists, and performers, I’m usually relegated to a more important task: glorified guide to the bathroom. For the most part, I don’t mind this part of my position. After all, people are at the theater to have a good time, so it’s usually a jovial atmosphere. And I like to be…
After four solid months of speculation, my mother finally decided on Ireland as the destination for her birthday celebration trip, despite a tour of England appearing to be the odds on favorite, even over the long-talked about Alaskan cruise. When I asked her why she had chosen the Emerald Isle, she told me that she wanted to go somewhere that I hadn’t been to yet. All together now…aww! When I last saw my mother, pulling out of my driveway early…
How many times have you said, “I really want to go to [some location]”? But then you just never seem to muster the get up and go, and that statement, that dream travel destination, just hangs in the confines of pleasant conversation, destined to be nothing but a wistful musing during a delightful Sunday brunch. There’s always a reason not to go: finances, timing, vacation days, kids, you name it. But studies, like this one, have shown that not traveling when…
Our walks have been slower these days. We don’t go nearly as far, and I’m often stopped waiting ahead as he sniffs around the neighbor’s yard. He’s never been a quick dog or even an energetic dog. As a puppy, he found walking the length of the house too strenuous and would collapse in a ball of adorable fluff halfway through, looking sadly toward me as if to say, “It’s too far!” I have very few memories of him actually running….