a trip to grandma's house

Yesterday was my mother's sixtieth birthday. I called her while I was waiting for someone to show up at daycare to drop Jake off. She sounded pretty good. I know it was a hard one for her though. After I finally got to work and I looked at our light schedule, I asked my charge nurse if I could leave early so I could drive up and surprise my mom on her birthday. I got out of work after a meeting I had that was interesting. I went and picked up a pizza, got gas, got Jake, ran home and packed him some stuff, and then we went and picked up a birthday cake. We headed on out. I waited a bit and then i started trying to call my mother. I couldn't get her over and over again. I kept thinking she was in a meeting. I decided to try her house. It would be like my mom to call in sick on her birthday. She calls in sick every week anyway so why not then. I couldn't get her at home. Then I think she is playing hooky and went shopping somewhere. It involves traveling a couple of hours for her to shop any where so I am cursing about that. Then there is about an hour stretch of road where you have no signal at all. I am sure hoping I didn't waste gas and time on this trip at this point.

So we get to her town. I have to call Mike to tell me how to get to the prison because it is right by the train track. He tells me and I eventually find it. It is four my mom is supposed to work until four thirty. Her car is not in the parking lot. Now I am really mad. So I drive by her house. Not a soul. Crap!!! By this time I really need to pee so that didn't help my temper. I called Mike and started venting. I started heading toward a gas station so I can go to the bathroom and my mom turns around the corner next to me. She doesn't realize for a minute that it is me waving at her.

It was worth the trip. My mom was tickled to death. She was so excited to see us. She liked the camera we bought her. I think she might be able to use it. She tried to stall our being there as long as possible. We ate dinner and Jake was a little stinker. We had cake and I told her we needed to go. Jake was not behaving at all well at this point. He is tired even though he slept the whole way up, THANK GOD!! So I pack up his stuff and she is trying to keep us. She made me take her picture with Jake out front. He wouldn't cooperate very well, but hopefully there was one decent one out of the fifteen I took.

Then we made it out. The interesting thing to me was that it was a pleasant visit. She did not make one of "her comments." I was quite shocked actually. I thought maybe she would have a comment about the camera, but she didn't. She loved it. I was really surprised. She said it was the best present of all for us to surprise her with our visit. It almost made me forget how visits with my mom go. I wish they could all be like this visit.

The drive home kind of sucked though. I drove a tad fast trying to get home. I wanted to get to the road I was familiar with before it got too dark. There are so many deer and antelope along this trip. I really hate dusk when they seem to be out. I did have to come to a hard break. I thought it was a baby antelope or deer up a head in the middle of my lane but it turned out to be a coyote. Not that I really wanted to hit that, but at least there wouldn't be more to run out in front of you like if it were deer or antelope.

So I will have to mark it on the calendar that I had a good visit with my mom. Sadly, there probably won't be another mark like that for a long long time.