July 6, 2006
Dear Everyone:
Once “Jeannie” and I decided to fly up to
It has a full kitchen, a dining area, a large living room with a TV and two bedrooms, one with another TV and one without a TV, but with a larger dresser. And it has a deck overlooking the lake. It’s definitely a “party room”. However, it has only one air-conditioner, which doesn’t work when the staff turns it off during the day. The bedrooms compensate by having ceiling fans.
And I remembered to tell them at the front desk that we were visiting our mother at Mary’s Woods. This got us the “corporate rate”, which saved us about $21.00.
We also rented a car at the airport. I had requested a mid-size sedan, so of course they “upgraded” us to a small SUV. We used this to get around. We arrived on Sunday and spent the evening at a barbecue put on by the ladies we still call “The Cassidy Girls”, even though they’ve all married and have different last names now.
On Monday, “Jeannie” drove Mother’s
Civic to the
Honda dealer in
Wilsonville,
with me following in the SUV.
We left the Civic to be worked on, getting it into shape to drive
back to
Then we went shopping for birthday presents and
wrapping paper. We found
everything we needed in one shopping center and got back to Mary’s Woods
in good time to take Mother to lunch at the Ram’s Head in
Tuesday, in addition to being
Independence Day, was Mother’s birthday.
We ran into “Ellen Cassidy” again at the store where we acquired
a small
We took Mother to the movies Tuesday afternoon (more about that later.) Then we let her take us to dinner at her favorite Chinese restaurant. We left before 9:00 to let her get some rest. Back at the hotel, we discovered that we could actually see fireworks going off down at the river on the east. A little later, we saw more fireworks being set off from what must have been the park at Lake Grove.
According to the original plan, on Wednesday, I
would drive the rental back to the airport while “Jeannie” drove
Mother’s car to
When I turned the car in, it seems somebody had bumped it a little, causing a minor dent on the right front fender. Since I had opted for insurance, it didn’t cost me anything except for the time required to fill out an accident report. This was a tad bit difficult since my answer to almost every question was “No idea”. I had no idea when or where it had happened, since I wasn’t anywhere near the car when it got bumped.
Once I actually got into the airport and made my way to the Southwest counter, I requested “passenger assistance”, i.e., a wheelchair and someone to push it. “Jeannie” and I had discovered that this is a much faster way to get through the airport than my hobbling along on my own. However, the passenger assistance people were somewhat overwhelmed and I had to wait a while.
This gave me time to realize that I had forgotten
to take the “criminal elements” out of my purse and place them in the
check-through bag. The bag
had already gone through security, but they told me I could mail them to
myself. The “criminal
elements” are a nail file, clipper, some safety pins and, most
importantly, the all-in-one-tool pocket knife that “Alice” gave me for
Christmas some years ago.
That was to replace the
Swiss Army Knife
that I had lost to airport security in
The wheelchair finally showed up and we went off to find the tiny area where the mail could be sent. The only envelopes available were “flat-rate overnight express” ones. However, there was no way to purchase flat-rate postage. There was a scale to weigh the package and first class came to just under $2.40. I could buy $2.40 worth of stamps, only the machine wouldn’t take bills. So I had to get two dollars worth of quarters and nickels to feed into the slot. My wheelchair pusher tried to help, but her English wasn’t up to it.
By the time I got the package into the mail slot, my wheelchair pusher had been abducted by someone who needed to get two people through security as quickly as possible. When she returned, she whisked me through security, then took both me and another wheelchair occupant off to terminal C. When we reached my gate, they had already boarded group A. I went straight onto the plane and found an aisle seat next to an eight-year-old girl who could be trusted not to scream or fuss.
I got home by 4:30, watched a free “On Demand”
movie (Roxanne)
and slept until 10:00 this morning.
“Jeannie”, in the meantime, is presumably on her way home,
planning on spending the night in a hotel somewhere near
As to movies, we took Mother to see The Devil Wears Prada. Meryl Streep plays Miranda Priestley, chief editor of a fashion magazine, Runway. Anne Hathaway plays “Andy”, a journalist who takes a job as the assistant to Miranda’s assistant. In the hotel business, they used to say if you could last a year under Leona Helmsly you could get a job at any hotel in the country. Anyone who could last a year working for Miranda could write their own ticket, so Andy tries to stick it out.
The movie purports to be about fashion, but it’s really about power. Miranda has it and her underlings, by definition, are powerless. Miranda never raises her voice, but her use of the word, “disappointed” can reduce a person to tears. At first, Andy regards her job as just a way to pay the rent until she can find “real work” as a journalist. But in no time, she gets sucked into the power game. Each time she has to choose between her job and her friends and/or co-workers, she declares that she has no choice. And then takes the choice that gives her more power.
Both actresses are great, as is Stanley Tucci as the go-to person for Andy. I’m sure “Jeannie” got more out of it than Mother or I, since she actually reads fashion magazines. She practically jumped out of her seat when a certain handbag appeared on the screen. It’s a fun movie, even if you know nothing about the fashion industry. Try it, you’ll like it.
Love, as always,
Pete
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