Spinning for Sanity

Sounds like a fiber fundraiser, doesn't it? Get your friends to pledge money for every yard spun, then sit down and spin until you drop? Hmm, not a bad idea.

That is not, in fact, what I meant though.

It's been a long week and the sanity I'm spinning for is my own.

My mother is in the hospital, three thousand miles away, and short of getting on a plane to go see her there is not much I can do other than provide moral support to my dad over the phone.

This has left me feeling very stressed and anxious.

I have been spinning. It helps, but not enough.

Edited to add: my mother had a better night last night, encouraging news.

My Other Mother

I grew up in a traditional family: one mother, one father, one sibling. My parents are still married after almost 47 years. I have no step-parents or half sibling or anything like that.

But I did have an "other mother" as a kid: a woman whose house I was in almost as much as my own, whose kids were like siblings to me, who was a close friend to my mother, who looked out for me and was a big part of my upbringing.

When my parents finished graduate school they moved to New England, leaving all of their family behind in the south. My father worked incredibly long hours and my mother had two children and knew almost nobody. It was a lonely time for her, a woman who needs the company of friends as much as food and drink.

On one of my grandmother's visits, when I was about two years old, she told my mother that she had a cousin in the next town over, one she had never met. My grandmother, who valued family connections, called her up, arranged a get together, and laid the foundation for a lifelong friendship between our families.

Several years later we bought land and built a house next door to the Jones's house (yes, we lived next door to the Joneses!) They had three daughters, and the younger two were the same ages as my brother and me. The town we lived in was very spread out and there were only a few other kids within biking distance, so we spent much of our time together (plus they had a pool!) The four of us grew up like siblings - playing, bickering, shifting allegiances, growing closer and sometimes farther apart. The youngest daughter became my best friend (or sometimes best frenemy) and still is to this day. (See my earlier blog post about her).

JJ (as we called my other mother because she and my mother had the same first name) was one of those women who did it all without seeming to ever lose her cool. Gardening, cooking, sewing, parenting, Girl Scouts, town events. She had a hand in most everything that went on in our small town, and we were the better for it. She was a nurse who later went back to school to become of the first certified nurse practitioners in the country. She patched us up when we fell and saved my brother's life (at least once). She was a New Englander through and through - practical, hardworking, kind, caring but not sentimental, and eminently resourceful.

We lost my other mother over the holidays after a four year battle with Lewy Body Disease. It was hard to watch her struggle to continue to lead her life on her own terms as her body failed her. I saw her the day before she died and was astonished at how small and frail she looked, this woman who was always larger than life to me.

I came back to New England this weekend with my daughter for her memorial and to be with the family. It was a lovely service and a fitting tribute. We will miss her.

WTF? The Air Travel Edition

So I have a question for any and all of you that travel on planes:

When you board an airplane where you stow your carryon baggage? Do you proceed to your row and stow your baggage in the overhead bin directly above your seat (assuming there is room)? Or do you stick your bags in any old overhead bin, regardless of where your seat is?

Before you answer, let me tell you that I have a strong opinion on The Right Way this should be done. I think your bags should go over your seat, or as close as you can get to it.

We traveled during the holidays. Normally I don't like to travel at the holidays - we used to do it every year but there's a reason I put my foot down about four years ago and said "I'm done". I like to be with my immediate family in my own house, with our rules, our food, our pajamas, etc. on Christmas day. Traveling in and out of the Northeast in the winter is a crap shoot and doing it with small children can be awful.

But things are complicated at "home", and I told my father we would come. So we went East on the 27th for a week.

Travel wasn't too bad on the way there: sure the line to get through security was long, but our plane wasn't full (when was the last time that happened) and we had six seats for the four of us - it was great.

The way home was another story. We had a 6:17 am departure so we left the house at 4:00. It was snowing, and had been for days, but the plows were out so it wasn't too bad. We got to the terminal and found a long line in front of the Air Tran terminal, but we were taking United so we kept on walking past the line. And walking, until we found that the line in front of the Air Tran counter was the United line which went across the terminal and had already doubled back on itself (the fact that it was 12 degrees Fahrenheit outside was the only reason the line wasn't going out the door.)

One thing we noticed on all parts of our journey was the increasingly strident tone the airline staff was taking in regards to carryon baggage. We were "advised" over and over that we could only take two bags, that any wheeled bag had to go in the overhead, that purses and coats were not allowed in the overhead, etc. etc.

On our flight out of Boston we were among the first in our seating area to board. We were about halfway down the plane, and we stowed one bag for each of us in the overhead, and put our other belongings under the seat in front of us. Safely seated, we were free to watch other passengers and how they dealt with their baggage.

The Italian and I both watched one group of four people stop at our row and enthusiastically stow all of their carryon baggage in the overhead compartment, filling two bins with their bags, purses, wheelies, coats, etc. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, they then proceeded to the last row of the plane, ten rows farther back, and took their seats.

Come on, that's just rude. I can understand if the compartments in the neighborhood of your seats are full needing to put your things somewhere else, but to just randomly stop and fill up a bin? Of course, when the other people who were sitting in our row, and the rows in front and behind, came to take their seats there was no place for their bags and they had to scramble to find space for it all.

The Italian and I were both amused and incensed, and it was a poor way to start the trip.

And I'm flying back at the end of the month. Let's see what travel conditions are like then!