NEEDLING

IT'S FINALLY WEDNESDAY

What a week. Thank god this is my three day week.

My sisters woke me up in total panic past three in the morning telling me Mom wasn’t on her scheduled plane landing in Austin. Did I accompany her to the airport? No, I was at work. She left the hotel at ten in the morning for a two o’clock flight. Did she call you? No. When did you see her last? What’s going on? Why wasn’t she on the plane? Dad’s freaking out. He’s waiting for her at the airport.

By this time I was starting to freak out myself. Incredibly enough, I was sleeping. And they had caught me completely off guard. Ok, my sister said, I’ll call you back as soon as I know something. Shit. I was totally awake by this time. Also freaking out imagining my mother hijacked by terrorists, or laying in a hospital bed somewhere after having been aggressed by thieves on the way to the airport via the RER. Then I decided to call my other sister. She told me she’d just called the airline and they had taken off two hours late from Charles de Gaule but that the airline refused to tell her whether or not our mom had been on either plane. Something about top secret information that if given would breach security regulations. (I didn’t quite understand this. If my mom is a terrorist and she’s already on the plane, what difference does it make if I know or not whether she got on the plane?)

I didn’t bother to ask my sister why they hadn’t called the airline to find this information out before calling me and freaking me out. At least things were coming together.

When I hung up, I got the message from my other sister telling me the same thing. I called the airline myself and was told that the plane took off two hours behind schedule and that the passenger I was asking about – my mom – was on both planes. I don’t know what the hell my sister was talking about not being able to get this information and top secret stuff.

I called both sisters back and told them mom was on her way momentarily, that I had been certified by the airline that she had gotten on both planes.

After that I couldn’t go back to sleep. It was fifteen till four in the morning and I had to be up by five thirty.

And work! A pain the last couple of days. However, I don’t feel like bitching about it. My wonderful colleague decided to be on ass on the very day my mother was in town adding on to the lack of sleep and so forth.

My mom and I had lunch after I got off work . We went to the terrace of a semi-touristy café close to place des Abesse. Overpriced skimpy salad and a beer. That’s alright, though. The sun was beautiful and warm. After that we had a real nice afternoon walking all over the capital. I accompanied her back to the hotel fifteen till ten, went home, and was back at work at fifteen till six the next morning.

Finally home. Completely tired. I should be working on my writer’s group commentaries and writing assignment. I’ll do that for a couple of hours before meeting up with some friends for a walk in the park. It’s such a beautiful day, it would be a shame to miss all of it.

Tomorrow I have to go see a couple of movies. That’s my life right now having a couple of beers, sitting on my futon with an orange towel wrapped around my waist after a nice bath.