Looking at our new tickets, I notice that during our 9 hour flight tomorrow, we will only be served a lunch. After going through the dress rehearsal here today, I know that by 2, we were all starving. A cheese or egg sandwich is not going to get us through the day.

We all have a piece of hand luggage. I look in our cupboards for extra food to take. Junk food, I confess : after all, I cleaned out the fridge this morning. A small packet of pretzel sticks, peanuts, gingerbread ( ontbijtkoek) and some whole wheat cookies the kids love.

The Father shakes his head in disbelief, but I run through the corners of my mind, trying to think of what else to bring.

Our tickets were lost in the mail. Our travel agent told us to simply go to the Delta counter and they would be re-issued. We might have to pay a hundred euro processing fee for each ticket, they told us.

No, we found out this morning, that was not correct : we would have to repurchase our tickets. 3000 + euro. After vigorously discussing the topic with the woman ( Yvonne) at the desk, The Father finally gave in. All right, we’ll buy new tickets.

Now, we just might be the only people left in this world who do not own a credit card : we use debit cards. And so I brought out a canasta hand of debit cards and she started printing out our tickets, eventually off of three of the cards. One. Two. 11 o’clock, oh dear, the magic deadline has passed. I can’t print out any more tickets for this flight, the one that leaves in 40 minutes. So sorry. These two can go.

We ended up buying new tickets for tomorrow. We really haven’t much choice, at this point. Yvonne will have special papers awaiting our signature, to refund our money for one or the other set of tickets.

During the initial, very emotional awareness that we were missing our flight, I called Dad as soon as I had my wits about me. We were to meet him and wicked Step-Mother in Cincinnati and continue on our our way, together, to D.C.

I got his answering machine.

In an attempt to leave a message for him in Cincinnati, an extremely helpful woman at Delta determined that he had changed his flight, left earlier and was on his way to D.C.

I leave a message for him at the Sheraton National and am relieved. He must have checked his messages, somehow. I asked him to call. Mistake- he hates being ripped off and finds hotels screw you on long distance calls. Can any old cell phone call Europe from the states ?

Another toy I haven’t got.

And now I sit behind the computer and move money around the accounts, to fill the holes left by the new tickets.

And how do I rate Delta’s service?

What service ?

We try again tomorrow.

Now to try and find Dad. Not only is the Sheraton site bad, it is now gone. At least from here.

Well, we are all going to look for America today.

I will send GWB everyone’s greetings ( White House Tour, here we come-)

See you all in about a week.

Or so-

I will get up tomorrow at my usual time, 6.30. The Father- who wakes up, alert, perky and singing- looks at me like I am mad. I want to just sit, I tell him, have a cup of coffee, collect my mind, before I have to run about like Murf the serf.

I wonder how many nicotine patches to snip open in the morning- after all, one can’t bring scissors on a plane and teeth just don’t work: gnawing away at the wrapper is just so…very obvious, so..addictive looking- so embarrassing-

And I really, really, don’t want to go to MA. I probably will, though. But I know I will have to go to that fool grave, that place where I know that my mother isn’t. I will stand there with her grandchildren- the ones she never saw- and be overcome by a flood of maudlin sentiment.

Ma ( like in Bah: a sheep) , I will think, look at my babies, look at your grandchildren. And even though I know that she is not there, that she is gone, I know that I will cry.

And I just don’t want the offspring to see me falling apart.

It scares them when I cry.

I – for one- would find going here much more interesting than going here .

Yes, Mummy had that room right by the bell- see that little window in the middle ? Lovely room, but her hearing hasn’t been the same since.

And that stinkin’ ticking, day and night….

Does anybody know just exactly where the Sheraton on 128 is ? Their website sucks and it’s not clear to me at all where it is.

Dad tries to convince me on the phone this morning to seriously consider the children and me jumping on a plane with him to Hartford after The Father leaves.

Wants to show the kids my alma mater ( *boring* although I seem to vaguely recall that Edith Wharton had a summer home around that part of the state that I would much rather see-), make that beautiful drive east, see the old house, maybe my brother. He could seriously tempt me with two words : Crane’s Beach.

And of course, after 22 years, I most likely would have to go and pay my first visit to my mother’s grave since the day that she was buried.

And, so how am I doing here ?

This says it pretty well.

I’m slavering at the bit to get an NTSC copy of Shrek II for the kids, and my connection has been collapsing all day. My IP address has been changed twice- by whom, I haven’t a clue.

Anyone want some Cheez-its, some Skippy Super Chunk ? Please, don’t be shy : we can fill ten ( count them) bags of 20kgs with loot.

Hmm ? What are you dying for ?

I am offering gifts from the Mummy – land, no strings attached.

And if your craving is simply too infantile for public knowledge, uh, my email really is sue@myurl.com. kitcheninbrabant or boevenbende will do it, for the bit after the ‘@’.

One year in the ’80s, my brother went to about three concerts- right in a row- and right after the concerts, someone from the group simply dropped dead. In fact, he still has a ticket for the last concert Ray Orbison never gave. He began to wonder if there was some occult connection, whether or not his presence at a concert was basically a cosmic kiss- of- death. A portent of doom.

I find myself beginning to wonder the same thing about myself : recently, a high percentage of sellers whom I have bought things from at Ebay are finding a member of their near- and- dears dead.

Am I a cursed Ebay buyer, sure to open the door to your peaceful home, allowing in a scourge of destruction and death ?

Or is this simply the Ebay equivalent of The dog ate my homework ?