The Beginning of Bad

This weekend has been unbelievable. Un..be..effin..lievable.

I'll begin from the beginning. Friday of course I drove all day to get Mom. Not a big deal. Everything went smoothly. We got home to L serving up the best lasagne I have ever had in my life. He made everything from scratch and you could almost smell it when you pulled into the driveway. It was that good.

Saturday Mom and I went shopping and bought her a nice black dress with beadwork on it. It looked very nice on her and she really likes it. Best of all, it was pretty inexpensive, since we found it at Ross. We bought her new shoes and everything. Then we went and had her hair done, and when we got home, I did her nails. She got to be a princess for a day and loved every minute of it.

Now here's where it starts to go south just a little bit.

We get to the art center opening, and it's all steps, stairs, and crowds of people crammed into a space that was much to small for the number of people present. I was terrified that mom was going to fall or something. We ignored the hors d'ouvres because our tickets had specifically mentioned dinner. There was no dinner. And by the time we were informed of this fact (and I do mean our entire party of 8-9 people), most of the hors d'ouvres were gone.

Add to this the fact that Mom can't have alcohol, and there were no complimentary non-alcoholic beverages. $90 a ticket, and we have to pay for Coca Cola. Then they ran out of red wine. Then they ran out of coffee. The elevators weren't working and our table was upstairs, so we had to go get the car and drive mom around so that she could sit down, because there was no seating of any kind downstairs. There were no restrooms upstairs, a fact we discovered after we had gotten Mom to the table.

Not to say that it was a bad experience, but mainly the good part was seeing Mom's reaction to being able to be there. I'll never forget it, and I'll do whatever I can to get that look on her face again as often as possible. : )

Sunday morning L and I got up before Mom did, shockingly enough. Actually, she had been up already, but went back to sleep. When I went in to wake her up, she had evidently fallen asleep while writing in her journal. It was lying there beside her while she slept, the cap still off the pen. She had written the date, and "This is the first day of the rest of my life."

Heh. I must say that got me.

Of course she doesn't know I saw it, and I'd never tell her. I am just glad to know that she is at least thinking about making positive changes.

Unfortunately, it's all downhill from there.

L made breakfast and we left for NC around 11 am. I had made the mistake of mentioning winesap apples while talking to Mom at some point, so she suggested that we go through Asheville and pick some up. "On the way." "It's really the same distance," Mom insisted, "And we'll get to see the leaves."

She was right about the leaves, but the scenic route definitely added about an hour and a half to the drive. L and I kept a good attitude about it, though, because Mom wanted to see the leaves, and we knew she wasn't in any hurry to go home. We found a great italian restaurant to have lunch, where mom tried a brie omelet and said it tasted like a musty attic, but she ate it.

...to be continued...