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| Limoni grown in the Cinque Terra town of Monterosso al Mare, Italy |
This is the theme of a single stellar day, the day before we were to fly off to Italy splitting the scene of our insanely responsible lives. This was a trip in the dream stage for many a year - a bookmark of David has adorned my desk for at least 10; and in the planning stage for at least two years, tearfully deferred last year due to job and family health issues. And here we were on the brink of the much anticipated vacation with fingers and toes crossed that both mothers stay healthy and we get through the long last minute to-do list.
The day began with a long distance call from a social worker reporting on a home visit with my 91-year old mother. In short order, she tells me my mom can no longer live safely in her independent living apartment. Except for a recent 6-week stay in “Assisted Living” following a fall, my mom has lived in this apartment in her beloved Quaker retirement community for the past 11 years. The conversation ends with this person revising her assessment when she hears the full story of the supports we have so carefully put in place to do what can be done to protect Mom’s safety, independence and wellbeing. Shaken body and soul, I stuff this exchange into compartment #5 and return to the gazillion-and-one things on the list.
Mid-day, a disturbing call came in from Bank of America about “your mortgage” and “debt collection”. After an array of communication, first to ascertain it is not a scam, and then to figure out why the hell they’ve sic’d debt collectors on us, it turns out that after 25 years of faithfully making monthly payments on our Aiea townhouse, the mortgage is paid off, and in fact BOA owes us money!
That same evening, a routine airline online check-in uncovered breaking news: the airline departing Honolulu is delayed 5 hours, which would get us into LA just in time to miss the 11 hour direct flight to Zurich on Swiss air, which of course efficiently departs on time. Multiple late night calls and hours on hold listening to United’s loud and static-laden theme song lead us from yelling “agent”…”agent”… into the automated system, to a series of polite but disempowered young men in India, and eventually to their better-paid female European-sounding peers in “International” who work their magic and get us new reservations on the last 2 seats on Hawaiian Air the next morning and into LAX with 3 hours to spare pre-Swiss Air departure.
Only at midnight, as we lay in bed, wide-awake and amazed, did the day’s pattern appear: disaster and rescue; lemons and lemonade; bad luck and good fortune. Two sides of the same coin? Ready to roll!
2 comments:
Too much limoni will turn you into a pickle. Is it age that makes it harder to cope with the vagaries of life, or is it life that ages one to become a collection of scrapes and scars, less flexible to meet the challenges that face us? Or will travel turn back the face of time and leave us younger in our hearts? Next page please.
A microcosm of life events to test your resolve...to have you earn your joy....to play with you...ah life. Nothing quite like it!
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