Dealing with Sudden Change

From one day to the next our fifteen-year-old Peruvian grandson no longer will come grooving in to the banquette table for his breakfast…won’t be here for supper tonight…we delivered him to the airport last night…he’ll actually be landing in Lima in 45 minutes.
Which reminds me to tell you that if you want to fly fast, book your flight after midnight…which means you’ll check into the line for TSA around 11:00 p.m.. There may be five people ahead of you in line, maybe seven…Cameron got through the nuisance with his humongous backpack zip zip, we were amazed.
OK, so the house only has us and Uschi now. Getting used to it. His parents suggested it’d be a vacation. How can you and why would you want a vacation from the epitome of delight? smarts? beauty? No way.
But I’m sitting here scribbling these notes now not because of the absence of a teenage boy.
I’m also in a partial nowheresville because we’re not going to Los Angeles this weekend.
We were planning to leave Friday, spend the night in Pismo Beach at a seaside hotel (room with a view, have supper at The Oyster Loft, a fine restaurant there), then turn up the next day in Burbank for lunch with a dear friend.
We then would see Bill’s granddaughter and great-grandson, then supper with some of my children/grands. Next day the same.
Next day we were picking up a couple of my mother’s bonsai forests that have been held safe these many years, and drive back with them via overnight at an inn in Paso Robles… (Yes, it’s only a five-hour drive Santa Cruz to L.A., but I’m fortunate to be able to drive freeways at all at my age, thus it’s wise to break the journey in half…)
Then this afternoon my blessed son-in-law in Santa Monica spoke urgently of a frightening case of COVID in his family in Chicago, and he and my daughter said they want us not to make the trip to L.A. where no one wears a mask and where a new COVID variant is rampant. “And Sylvia, you and Bill’ll be in and out of hotels where people who may be infected without knowing it will have cleaned your room…and be in crowds at meals…we don’t think you should come…”
“But I want to SEE you and…”
Touched, surprised, Bill and I talked about it, I cancelled three hotels, one restaurant, and dates with friends and progeny.
And now I’m sitting here bereft. At sixes and sevens.
The bonsais I guess we’ll see if the little trees can be shipped. Heaven knows when we’ll get to see daughter, sons, grands and great-grands.
I’d planned to work organizing my study this afternoon but it’s after 3:00 and I’m immobilized.
Oh well.
Such is life.
Made some popcorn. That helped. I’ll water the garden now…will pick some sugarsnaps. Bill and I will walk Uschi, since Cameron’s not here to do it.
Will make a chicken curry for supper (Nan, did you send me your recipe?).
The great thing is that the country’s budget business has been resolved (at least up to this point). Bill and I are, so far, in good health. We have devoted family and friends.
Get moving, Sylvia. Enough sitting stunned.
That was yesterday.
This early morning middle of the night, as is my sleeping habit, I was listening to NPR, eager to hear more about the state of our union.
Then I heard the sound of weeping and correspondent Emmanuel Akinwotu describing the camp where they were in Chad–110 degrees heat–10,000 refugees fled from the violence in Darfur…a man describing losing everything he’d worked for all his life…a woman speaking of the deaths of her father and grandfather…
I pushed my radio’s Off button.
I’m abashed to say I’m not sure where Chad is…or Darfur–it’s in the Sudan, but where is that?
I’m more than embarrassed to say that my state of mind as a consequence of my daily routine being disrupted and the unraveling of our travel plans…
I wish I could be in that camp in Africa–at least I know it’s Africa–and hug that man, put my arms around that woman…
Atone for being a silly ungrateful addlebrained–did I say ungrateful?–numbskull…