If we had looked upon this day as a prediction of what our trip would be like, we may have stayed home. To say that nothing went as planned would be an understatement. We learned that our beloved cat, Nala, has a urinary tract infection and requires a seven day course of medication. We realized with a fair degree of panic that our train reservations were actual physical documents that needed to be picked up in Pasadena, not just the nebulous Internet record that we thought them to be. Our brand new camera, which was a gift that Greg's parents given to us for this trip, malfunctioned and the lens refused to open all the way. All of this in the midst of trying to pack and ready the house for our departure. And then the locusts descended....well, in truth they were bees. While cleaning out the garage so we could park one car there in our absence, a trickle of bees were spotted flitting about, which quickly increased to swarm. What they were after, who is to say. I had just seen a PBS special on bees which prompted me to shout full of conviction, "The queen is calling them with her pheromones, find the queen and move here!" Hah, what must the neighbors think. We finally decided containing them was best because they were arriving in droves. We closed the garage door and miraculously they started fleeing through a vent in the roof, but only after we doused those who were swarming around the closed door with a spray of water from the hose. Crisis averted, we wondered how we would finish all that needed to be done in order to make it to our flight the next morning. I am glad to say that, though everything started out all wrong, in the end everything turned out fine, thanks to a supportive team of family and friends. Yih- Mei, a friend who lives in the valley, was driving out our way and was easily persuaded to help us out by picking up our train reservations and dropping them at our doorstep. Yes, we love her! My mom and grandma arrived with lunch. Thanks you, ladies! Greg's mom volunteered to take the camera back to the store and returned with a brand new camera. You rock, Sue! Rose, our patient and wonderful house sitter has the cat meds under control and she calmly dealt with our crazy last minute packing and awakened full of grace to drive us to the airport on time. You were our savior, Rose! So I had several thoughts about why everything went wrong. A. The trip is doomed and these were signs that we should not go, if so too late, we are already on the plane. B. Karma, all those people who said they were so jealous of our plans, they were hexing us out of spite (that's not really what karma is, but you get the idea). C. It was an overarching theme for our trip, a prediction that though not all will go as planned, all will turn out fine. Or D. (my personal favorite) an opportunity to remind us that we have an amazing group of friends and family who can look after things in our absence and we really need not stress about the life we are leaving behind as we enjoy a summer of travel. Draw your own conclusions, but as I fly over the Great White North, preparing for our layover in Montreal, I choose to believe that everything went wrong the day before we left on our trip, to keep us in balance in the universe and everything is about to go very right.
Nala, saying her farewells.
Wow what a day!
ReplyDelete