Mother's Day

Mother's Day was really weird this year. A good friend who used to live here was coming to Chicago for a convention that started on May 13th. Five weeks ahead of time, she called to say let's get together.

Meanwhile my brother in DC invited me to their beach house for Mother's Day. I said yes, until I realized that May 13th was Mother's Day. So I told him I had a previous commitment with my girlfriend and couldn't come.

Four days at the beach with my cute niece and nephew and I couldn't go. As it turns out, I should have gone.

My girlfriend decided to make her trip a two-fer, so she also took some time off to visit her daughters in Indiana the week before coming to Chicago.

You with me so far?

Then I got an email from one of her daughters who thought it would be great to have a party in Chicago for her mom with her close friends in the area.

So I set up a Mother's Day brunch at a mutual friends' apartment, halfway between everybody. They have loads of room and he loves to cook, so that seemed like the best idea. Plus one of my own daughters could also join us after she ran in the Y-Me race that morning.

Meanwhile, my friend began to finalize her plans. She said her daughters would be coming with her on the South Shore train to Chicago which arrived at around ten in the morning. 

I would pick them all up at the station and take them to the brunch. After the brunch she had to check in for the convention. Her daughters would get back on the train to Indiana. And I was going to spend a night or two at her hotel so we could have some girlfriend time.

Then the following things happened:

My friend said she would be coming in on Amtrak, not the South Shore train.

Amtrak doesn't run on time. Ever. They might say they get in at 9:45 AM, but that's just an estimate.

I called to make sure. I was right, no miracle had occurred. The train had been running an hour and a half late all week. On Friday it was almost three hours late. I called on Saturday right before it was due and that train was already more than three hours late.

I could only imagine how late the train would be on Sunday.

So I called my friend to say we should probably skip the brunch because her train was going to take twice as long to get to Chicago as it takes to drive. I even thought about driving to pick her up at one point, but you'll discover that was a moot point as it turned out.

I called her daughters so we could make plans for something else to do when they finally got here. But they told me they never planned to come in the first place. Huh?

I called the hosts of the brunch and left a message on his cell phone Saturday night cancelling everything.

On Sunday morning, my friend called from the train. She said the conductor told her they were going to be about an hour late. I told her I'd already called and she was going to be almost four hours late.

So Mother's Day ended up with no brunch.

But I was going to meet my friend at her hotel for dinner and a slumber party.

No hotel. She was now staying with another friend downtown.

I called my friends to say I was sorry for canceling the brunch.

Only to discover they never got my message. So they had a lot of bagels and blintzes and omeletes, etc., etc. And no one was coming to eat it.

On top of everything else, I'd taken my car in to be fixed on Friday, so I could drive everybody around on Sunday. But it needed a part that wouldn't arrive until Tuesday. My mechanic said I could drive it, but not out of the driveway.

So I didn't have wheels anyway.

I did talk to my daughter who lives in London. She had called me on their Mother's Day which is in March or something. So I called her on my Mother's Day and we had a nice chat. The bad news is that I don't get to see her very much.  The good news is that I get two Mother's Days out of it.

Wait a minute, what happened to my other daughter?