On the Road Again

My mother’s having her 5th annual oyster party this weekend. My brother and sister are going. Last night I got to thinking: I really should be there too, so Mom can be surrounded by her entire brood.

On top of that, my sister’s life has been full of travails lately and I decided she could use a visit from me. I am a breath of fresh air, a ray of light, a beacon in the darkness and a joy in every way (in case you hadn’t noticed).

The only problem is my family lives 3000 miles away. That, and I don’t have any time.

Despite every argument to the contrary, I couldn’t shake the idea that I need to go back. Call it a sisterly premonition. Call it OCD. After a midnight scramble to figure out logistics, I cashed in some miles and booked a flight.

Unbeknownst to me, at that exact moment back in predawn Pennsylvania, my sister’s guinea pig was having a uncontrollable squeak-a-thon. Afraid it would wake her grandson, she got up, carried the cage downstairs in the dark, walked across the living room, tripped over a table and broke her leg and ankle.

She lay there in the dark for a while, looking, she said, like Wyeth’s Christina’s World as she shouted to the newly escaped guinea pig: “Run! Run for your life!” (She has two cats.)

So in a matter of hours I’m flying back. She can’t get to the computer so she won’t know that I’ve packed yarn to knit her a toe-cover for her cast, a book about how to read tea leaves (if only she’d checked them before getting up last night), the complete DVD set of… well, maybe she can get to the computer by now, so I’ll say no more.

Kate: next time you want me to visit, please… just ask.