Memories of Mom: A Mother-Daughter Bonding Experience (Rerun)

To see the reason for my writing this "Memories of Mom" series, see the first post in the series.

(Originally posted Tuesday, October 28, 2008 and was rerun on March 29, 2011 by request. It seemed appropriate for this series)

WARNING: This post contains adult content and references to genitalia, sex toys, and batteries. Read at your own discretion. If you are under 18, just lie and tell your folks that you didn't read it.

Don't blame me: there was a request for it!

My mom was helping me pack today, and we were discovering that there was a lot more to do than I had thought there was. And we had less time to do it in. So there was some back-and-forth comments, as is usual, some mild bickering.

Then came a knock on the door. It wasn’t until I was almost to the door that I realized what it had to be: my delivery from Babeland.com. Early. Usually UPS doesn’t deliver in my area until late afternoon or early evening (it’s a long story and an even longer way from anything resembling an airport). So when I made my order, I figured it would arrive after my mom was gone.

Nope.

The rectangular package was only as long as the distance from my elbow to the end of my fingers. Mom came out of the bedroom, where she had been sorting and packing my clothing, and asked “What is it?”

I Gotta Get Out of This Place

Friday, November 7, 2008: I was aiming for a departure time of between 9:00 and 9:30 am. We hadn’t packed the car yet; as of last evening, I hadn’t yet even opened my tent, much less set it up. (See next post.) Mom woke me at 7am and after 2 mugs of tea, PB on toast, and a shower, my mom and I proved to be a major force in physics: we got everything into that car first time, more or less. No major repacks, just one or two tweaks. I finally accepted that I will not be a stealth traveler: the car looks more like I am moving than that I am on a vacation for one or two months. I have to wonder how much of this I will discard over the next few weeks.

I drove away from Mom’s at 10:15 am.

But I still had one or two things to do. I had to return the other air mattress and pump (I finally decided to live with the slow leak in the Aerobed until I could find another Aerobed and return the first one). I needed a flu shot. And I needed to change my address at the DMV (and they will be sending me a sticker with my new address in the mail…which is so very helpful; why can’t they print it right there and be done with it?).

It took 5 minutes to return the bed and pump. It took 40 or 45 minutes to get my shot (same place, too). I still don’t know why. I have been working on my arm all day in the hopes that it won’t hurt tomorrow. We laugh.

I finally called friend John to tell him I’d be a wee bit late, given that I was on the order of 2 hours late already. And I still had to stop at Best Buy to return the digital voice recorder: it wasn’t until I got the package open and looked inside the manual that I discovered that it didn’t support Macs. I considered buying a more expensive one that said PC and Mac compatible, but I had questions and the line to the Computer Services desk was too long. There was that little matter of 2 hours behind that was bugging me.

I want to learn that life isn’t Pass/Fail: that it is okay to be two hours later than planned on vacation if there is no flight to catch.

I didn’t do too badly. I arrived at friend John’s place about 2:15. It was great to catch up for almost 2 hours! The only problem was, that I didn’t get to Ashland (my chosen resting place for tonight) until after 7, thus after dark. And I really didn’t know where I was going. I am so surprised that I found one of the motels I’d picked from the AAA book!

Now, it’s a 2-star motel: inexpensive, few amenities, older. The first room they gave me smelled kind of funny, but I can live with that. And when the water came out of the faucet all rusty, I knew I could just let it run and it would most likely clear. In a while. A longish while.

I didn’t expect the water to grow warmer. From the COLD water tap.

Maybe the taps are reversed? I thought to myself.

I turned on the one labeled “H”. It got hot too. I wondered if I had somehow been assigned The Haunted Motel Room.

Turns out the remodeling that is supposedly going on messed up the plumbing. I say “supposedly” because it is dark and I cannot see if there is anything going on. I should consider working on that paranoia of mine, too.

They gave me a different room. It doesn’t smell. It’s not freezing cold. And the plumbing works just right. As I'm feeling a bit like Goldilocks at this point, I wonder if there is porridge in the continental breakfast in the morning?

PS: There was no continental breakfast! Bit of a mis-communication. Probably. Or just the overall aura of that odd place....