Ed, transport

I saw Ed Kennedy died this morning.  To be honest I am surprised he lasted this long since his brain cancer diagnosis last year.  Maybe I should feel more remorseful to lose one of the most prominent and long standing democrats in the senate.  I don’t though.  From the stories I have heard over the years Ed seemed to be sort of a scum ball in his personal life, no matter what his political persona may have been.  I felt worse when Billy Mays died.

This morning I was at my mom’s place at 5:30 am to take her to the airport.  My brother is flying her up for a few days to visit.  Originally mom planned to pay a transportation service to take her to the airport since it was so early.  I had to explain to her it was dumb to pay for something like that when I could just drop her off myself, especially since mom is in a negative cash flow situation each month now.

Mom indicated that she wanted to be picked up at 5:15,  her flight was not until 7:15.  I knew she would be bent out of shape that I didn’t arrive until close to 5:30 am.  I called her on the way to assure her we had plenty of time.  I laughed to myself as I pulled up to her place and saw mom had her suitcase outside and ready to go to save precious seconds.  On the way there mom tells me how she was up since midnight.  I asked her why? She said for some reason she doesn’t trust that her alarm clock will go off, the same alarm clock she has had for at least 30 years that has never failed.  I then asked what time she had it set for, “3 am” mom says.  WTF, why in the world would you need to get up more than two hours before I was supposed to come get you?  Mom said she needed to shave her legs and hot roller her hair….  Oh geez, well there was no point in trying to rationalize it.  Mom seems to feed on these sort of self constructed hurdles.

So even with my arriving 15 minutes late I had her at the airport  by 6 am. With all of the worry, all of the time staring at the ceiling, all of the two hour prep and my late arrival mom still will wind up sitting in the terminal for a solid hour waiting to take off. I know my personality is closely patterned after my mom in many ways.  I just hope my own mental demons don’t  push me to the point where simple tasks become sources of disproportionate amounts of worry and concern.