Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Reunion Ramblings

Trip reading: Identity Unknown & No Ordinary Man by Suzanne Brockmann. No One Heard Her Scream, by Jordan Dane.

Back from the family gathering. It was originally organized to celebrate the 90th birthday of my mother-in-law, and immediate family flew in from Oregon, Colorado, Florida and Ireland. Shortly before the event, my m-i-l fell and broke her wrist and was having severe back pain. We decided not to cancel, since it's rare that we all gather in the same place at the same time, and it would likely be her only chance to meet her new great-grandson. Plus, there were at least 4 other May birthday/anniversaries to celebrate among the small group.

Only travel mishap was a delay in Chicago for the Colorado contingent. Unfortunately, this was the group traveling with the5-month old, but they got to the hotel shortly after midnight. Not too terrible, since they were running on a 2-hour time change, so it wasn't really that late.

Next day:

M-i-l had recently been discharged from the hospital and moved to a rehab center. After gathering at b-i-l's for brunch, my daughters, son, d-i-l and baby drove to the center to pay a visit. My husband, bless his soul, wanders down the hall looking for her room and when a nurse appears, he says, "Is my mother up to having visitors?"

She looks at him, and says, "Who are you?"

He replies, "I'm her son."

"And whose son is that?"

"The lady in room 105."

"There are two ladies in that room."

Duh – not that there aren't a kazillion nice white-haired ladies whose sons come to visit. Never occurred to him that she didn't know exactly who he'd come to see.

Sunday, we bade farewell to the Colorado contingent who had to return to jobs. If anyone gets the Murphy's Law award, it's them. They get on their plane, and immediately after takeoff, it turns around because the cabin won't pressurize. After the typical delays, they're told it looks like the next flight out will be Tuesday. After much waiting, including over two hours to get the gate-checked stroller off the planes, they get booked on another airline leaving the next afternoon and get a hotel reservation, a rental car and nothing but 'sorry, nothing we can do for you, except a voucher for about 1/3 the cost of their ticket' excuses from the airline's outsourced customer service people. Next day, they board the new flight, and things are relatively uneventful. They're now routed out of Dallas. That plane has a warning light so they sit in un-air conditioned delight for about an hour while they try to deal with it. Thought it was fixed; it wasn't. They did get home, eventually, but I'm not sure my daughter-in-law is going to travel again until the baby is 18 years old.

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