A Couple of Stories

Believe it or not, neither of these stories has much of anything to do with Catherine, other than that she was present during both incidents.

Part of the reason I haven't posted much of anything in the past couple of weeks is that Catherine and I flew back to California with my mom at the end of her visit and stayed there for 9 days. It was a great trip! In fact, my brother and Carlo were there for 5 of the days, so Catherine was is hog heaven. It was fun to be there with Matt, too, because our trips out there never coincide. We see them a lot since they live in Virginia, but we haven't spent any significant time at home together in years.

These aren't in chronological order, but this first one is funny:

There's this place in town that has been in Stockton for years. It's called Chuck's, and it's total greasy-spoon kind of place that would be on "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives." Our parents used to eat there, and the same family has been running it the whole time. They have yummy breakfast and these huge, dinner-plate sized pancakes. You definitely don't want to eat there within 2 weeks of a cholesterol test.

Matt, Carlo, Catherine and I were up earl yon Saturday and went there for breakfast. I drove my mom's car, and we parked out front. As I was walking in, I was trying to dig the keys out of my purse to lock the door, but I couldn't find them. I figured it was no big deal, even if we were in Stockton (a likely place to get your car stolen or at least broken into). We went inside, waited a good 10-15 minutes and then got a table. We had out artery-clogging feast and headed back to the car.

I sill couldn't find the keys, though. I knew the doors were unlocked, so I climbed in the driver's seat and noticed, oops! I left the keys in the ignition. Hee hee, no big deal. We've all done that once in our life, right?

But I bet you haven't LEFT THE CAR ON!!!! I sure did. My mom's car idles so low that none of us had even noticed it was still running when we got out of the car or back into it! It's a good thing it was early on a Saturday morning because if it had been any other day or time in Stockton, that poor car would have been long gone.

And story number 2 ...

On the trip out there, my mom and I were able to coordinate our flights to be on the same one, and we also were on a huge 767 on the leg from Atlanta (trust me, when you fly across the country and back as much as I have, you start paying attention to the type of plane when you book). It was pretty empty, so we brought Catherine's car seat. If you have a lap infant (which means you haven't bought an extra ticket) and there's enough room on the plane, they will let you have the seat anyway. We only had 40 minutes between our flights and had to change terminals, so we literally ran the entire way holding carrying all of our stuff. I mention later exactly what all that stuff was. But Catherine ended up with her own seat and just chilled with some DVDs until the battery ran out. All of the seats had TVs on the back, so then I bought her a movie to distract her for the rest of the flight once her books weren't doing it for her anymore.

So things were going pretty well. That is, until we got off the plane. Between my mom and I, we were carrying 2 carry ons, 2 purses, a diaper bag, a car seat and a stroller. Oh yeah, and a child. Our brilliant plan was to take BART all the way to Pleasanton because Jim had to teach class and we didn't want him to have to leave early. Sidenote: My mom said getting on BART at the airport was "easy" and didn't require changing trains. That's why I agreed to it in the first place.

We get halfway out the terminal when my mom realizes that she left her wallet on the plane. So I stand there with Catherine in a Baby Bjorn, a 30-plus pound backpack, a 20 pound diaper bag and a purse while she runs back to retrieve it. Of course, they had already sent it out to baggage claim. We got our bags and started following the BART signs. At this point, Jim has already called and is at the BART station in Pleasanton. He offered to drive the rest of the way, but for some crazy reason, we kept going.

Long story longer ... TWO HOURS later, we arrive in Pleasanton with semi-permanent damage to my shoulders. We had gone up and down at least 5 elevators, waited 15 extra minutes to CHANGE TRAINS, and the actual ride was about 35 minutes longer than my mom thought.

Ugh. Let's just say that BART isn't an option anymore, unless I'm by myself and have minimal luggage. It's a good thing Catherine was so pooped from not sleeping on the plane. She just hung out in the Baby Bjorn and slept through much of the ordeal.