Last year, my mom was living in Florida with an old friend of hers who has custody of her six grandchildren. The woman also has cancer and is struggling pretty hard to keep it together.
I visited for a week last summer, to help with the kids while my mom flew back north to see Hannah off to Rwanda.
This year, Mom is home and settled in a new house, Hannah is stateside and we are visiting Florida to keep up with all the kids and several cousins who reside down here for some strange, unknown reason.
I worked the breakfast shift at home yesterday morning, just to give T confidence that she would be ok without me. She and E are very agreeable to giving me time off right up until it's time for me to leave. Then they go into panic mode and my greeting yesterday morning from T was, "Good morning, traitor."
I told her where things were around the kitchen, drew on a full week's supply of brown paper bags for R's school snacks, put away one last load of laundry for the kids and headed off to the train.
She texted me a couple of hours later to ask me where the balsamic vinegar was.
So, I spent my day in train stations and then at the airport, napping while waiting for Mom to arrive. My brother drove her in from his area, where she left her car. His bat-out-of-hell driving techniques had Mom pretty frazzled, but she made it to the airport in one piece and we headed off to security.
We both got sent through the magical body scanner and then patted down afterward. And the several chargers and batteries that I had in my backpack for my phone, computer and camera caught the eye of the security guard and we had to wait there a few extra minutes while they checked them for explosives.
They searched my backpack, which seems to be my norm. I ALWAYS get randomly selected. I'm very suspicious looking.
After take off I got SO BORED that I nearly died. It was impossible to nap and United Airlines charges eight dollars to watch TV. BOOOOOOOOOOOO. After suffering for a while, we broke out Skip-Bo and played right up until landing. We were descending before we finished (and I won, duh) and it got pretty scary and intense.
The landing was atrocious. A couple of years ago, flying back from Uganda with a friend, I witnessed the single best airplane landing in the entire world and nothing will ever live up to it. And this certainly didn't.
We went down to baggage claim and I found my bag, missing the pin I had put on it to identify it and soaked. It took Mom a while longer and then she found hers.
We went over to claim the car we had reserved from Avis and had a million problems. We ended up trying two other companies before Alamo finally gave us a car. Hallelujah.
So, here we are in my cousin's house, soaking up some Florida thunderstorms and just generally relaxing. I am so relieved that it's rainy because that means no one will expect me to go outside in the horrible humidity and heat. We can just sit and enjoy the AC like normal, civilized people.
Tomorrow we'll be visiting Mom's church from when she lived here and then we're off to start the week, visiting the kids and other cousins. You might not hear from me.
Hold your breath!
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