Update... Sept 5, 2007

Welcome to the latest installment of “Update…”, my little life has been quite eventful as of late… so I am only gonna skim the surface… that is all I have time for, I do actually HAVE a job and actually need to at least fake doing it sometimes.

Quick random story: So, I was in the shower this morning… I do that regularly. I also do my best thinking in the shower, it seems to be my temple of thought or my sauna of meditation or just more or less where I get clean. Anyway, I was going to be having dinner with a new friend this week. Now, this is a new friend, and not someone that I know personally, but this new friend is pregnant. This throws a wrench in my normal social patterns. I mean the stereotypes dictate that this person could be in any number of emotional states, and it is not only up to me to discern this quickly upon introduction but to navigate these perilous waters with little knowledge of this person and their likes and dislikes… talk about being a little nervous, I was actually trying to figure out how to approach the situation. So, I thought about do’s and don’t’s… like… don’t touch her belly. Don’t talk about liquor and order a double martini with a Makers chaser. Do be yourself, but if you see her burst into tears detour the conversation to something that pertains to her… Don’t talk too much about her job, you don’t know if she is leaving that world behind and regretting it… or if she is leaving that world behind and loving the fact that those bastards are history. Don’t talk about the cute little dress you just bought in a size 4, and how it really makes ANYONE look slim. Do you see the pitfalls here? Do you see the myriad of potholes in the road? That road looks like a driving range on beginners day! Now, I must admit that I am a little afraid of having children, not raising children, but actually giving birth. I think most women are, actually I think it is most women who have never done it. I am sure it is like sky diving the first time you do it, it’s scary… the second time… no big deal. The difference? In sky diving you have someone else strapped to you in a tandem jump… you are truly in it together. To quote Leonardo DiCaprio “You jump, I jump”. In that birthing room, no one else is gonna give birth that baby but you! Then I started thinking of the movie “Alien”… and that thing that popped out of that man’s chest… are you with me? Pregnancy is much like that. Your body has been taken over by an alien being, that is literally going to pry its way out of you when it is damn good and ready. Yeah, I am sure everyone in that theater was screaming their heads off, except the women that had already given birth. I could just see two female friends sitting together in the theater, one a mother, the other a non-mother… the scene comes on, and pandemonium goes up in the theater, men are screaming, the one friend is screaming, the other woman leans over, still eating her popcorn and says, “you know, when something is trying to get out of you like that, it isn’t that bad. And look at how quick that was for him, if ONLY I had had it that easy!” She then leans back into her chair and resumes her popcorn consumption… completely unphased by what she has just seen. You gotta love those women who have given birth, they are my heroes! Personally, I feel that pregnancy and delivery is something I must tolerate in order to have the children that I want… can I get an ‘Amen’?

On with the “update…”

I just got back from New York, yes the Big Apple baby! It was my sister, Mary Pat, 50th birthday bash, and what a bash it was!!! It was like nothing could go wrong… everything ran like a well oiled machine, for the most part. We hit our first snafu on the way out of town. My sister Laura, my mother and I headed to the airport early Friday morning to catch a 7am flight to LaGuardia. We arrive at the airport, it is 6am. We park the car and look at the massive security lines… the sight of it hits all three of us at the same time, we are going to miss this flight. We get our bags checked in and get in the security line that literally looks like “American Idol” audition lines. The line is forever long, and stretches around three roped off zig-zag lines, and then proceeds down a long hallway. I look at Laura, and we decide to leave mom in the line and seek out another line… “Leave your phone on we tell her”, the lady standing next to my mother says “If your phone rings, I am coming with you!”. We both run to another section of the terminal, in an all out sprint. We find the next line. It is LONG, but not as long as the other line… we call, and my mother and she and her new friend make their way to us. We are standing, we are waiting, we are checking our watches every five minutes when suddenly one of the terminal employees says, “First-class and platinum members in this line.” That line is SHORT! And I say, “Gold members?” and she says “Yes.” Cha-ching!!!! Yahtzee baby, I jump over to get into the line and my sister says “I’m not gold.” I grab her hand and pull her out of line and say “I am! Let’s move.” She grabs my mother, the stranger that has been following us around comes too! We may have chance! We are waiting, they are checking everyone’s carry on bags… literally going inside of all of them. We have twenty minutes before the flight takes off, and we get to the front of the line. Laura kicks off her flip flops, I kick off my flip flops, my 70 year old mother wore tennis shoes! She is unlacing them! The time is ticking by, I can hear my heart beating in my chest, as she slowly leans over to unlace and get these shoes slowly off of her feet. Finally they are off, and I whip them into a bin, she puts her carry on bag into a bin, her purse in a bin, and we walk thru the security scanner… then I hear… “BAG CHECK!!” What?!?! It is my mother’s carry on!!! They whip out the five plastic bags that she has inside her brown carry on, saying “You can only have one bag ma’am”. You have got to be kidding me?!?! I tell Laura to GO!… Save yourself! Laura heads for the plane, I am there waiting for Mom, because if by some miracle we can get her out of here, I can run with the bag to the plane and she will then only have to steam her own weight! The lady consolidates everything into one bag, she wont let me touch anything, she wont let me help her, she wont hurry, and the clock isn’t slowing down!!! Finally this cartoon of a security officer lets us go, my mom is running as fast as she can, which is slower than my fastest walking pace, and I take the lead, I have her purse, my purse, her carry on and flip flops on as I speed down the terminal. We get on the plane and even have a couple of minutes to spare… New York, here I come!!!

We get in, and meet my sister and my aunt at the airport. We didn’t have any transportation arranged, but my mother had called ahead and said that we should take a “super shuttle”. So, we get our bags and I call “super shuttle” to see if they can pick us up. The man on the phone asks, “What name is the reservation under?”. I say, “We don’t have one.” Once he started laughing, I simply hung up. We managed to procure ourselves a nice shiny white limousine to take us to our hotel, take that Mr. Super Shuttle!!! From then on the weekend went flawlessly.

I had made up an itinerary and everything went perfect, or at least really close to it. There were a few “wild cards” that were built into the weekend, mostly breakfast places and such. My mother however is also a “wild card”. I love my mother, I couldn’t ask for a better one, she really is great, and a lot of fun to be around. Now, my mother was married to my father for 35 years. My father was REALLY outgoing. Never met a stranger. I think since his death, my mother has tried to fill that spot with enthusiasm. That being the case, my mother is friendly and will really talk to anyone. The only problem is that my mother doesn’t always who, or what, she is talking to. On Saturday morning we all went to breakfast, and whenever you eat in New York you try to use the restroom… the simple fact is that you don’t know when you will find another one to use. So, we all head to the ladies’ room. My mother included. There is quite a line at the ladies’ room, and so I allowed my mother to go ahead of me in line. There was a “woman” standing in line just behind me. She was 6’2” tall, in flat shoes, had an adam’s apple, extremely narrow hips, was wearing a wig, and heavy makeup. The line had extended beyond the bathroom and was pouring out into the hall, and she was holding the door open, to let in some air. My mother washes her hands and is ready to leave when she encounters this “woman”. My mother says, “Wow, you could be the doorman!” My mother trying to be funny, laughs a little and says “Oh, I’m sorry, door-person”. At this point it is everything I can do to keep a straight face, I don’t want to laugh… I know that my mother is just being herself, and there is NO WAY she knows this is a man she is talking to. The woman tells her, that the line is long, and my mom says something about the line to the mens’ room is always so short. Her new friend says, “I have been in plenty of mens’ room before and you’re right, there is no line.” My mom now feels like she is engaged in conversation and goes further to tell her that she could start charging people for holding the door and work for tips! Finally my mother leaves. I use the restroom and all the while I am trying not to look at anyone in the eye. I just simply want out. I finally get outside and ask my mom, “Did you know that was a transvestite you were talking to?” She says, “Oh gosh, no it wasn’t!”… yeah folks, it was!

The highlight of the trip for me was high tea at the St. Regis Hotel. It was really elegant and really amazing. The presentation was phenomenal, the food was spectacular, and I felt like a “lady” or at least like a programmer paying to feel like a lady! It was honestly fantastic, if you get to New York I highly recommend it. We did see two shows, we ate non-stop, and we covered an amazing amount of ground in the 3 days that we were there. It was a great trip, one for the record books! I hope Mary Pat enjoyed it, I hope that she looks back on her 50th birthday as one of her best, I know that I will.

Until next time…


Peace, love, and door-“men”,
Martha