Best Of

Good afternoon ladies:

Another weekend has come and gone, but it is beautiful here in New Mexico here in Sept. My favorite month here when temps cool down and nights get cooler too.

I had my tree company in this week to do a bit pruning of some of the trees, and they pulled out a dead one plus shrubs I no longer can handle without bigger power tools I don't want to buy. Four men who worked front and back with their power tools and things look SO MUCH BETTER now. Yesterday I went out to Walmart garden center and Home Depot and loaded up on some fall mums and have those going in the pots and in the gardens right now. Things are looking really good around here.

We are three weeks away from opening the new hospital and although there are some loose ends that make me go "hmm" we are at the point of whatever happens happens now (and a lot of it has zero to do with our dept). Our teams have been busy getting the last of the things set up and they are prepping for the opening. Now everyone is asking when I am retiring because they just cared about me staying through the opening and think there is a lot of "oh crap she may be going soon" kind of talk. My boss asked if I was retiring before year end and said no, I planned to work through year end for my own financial goals but thinking early 2026. They are dangling the possibility of a possible part time arrangement which I am not sure I want or would happen anyways. In the mean time I am focused on getting ready to go and also going to have a little vaca to CA to visit family in early Nov.

Mommy- is your new home being built? I had my home built 20 plus years ago and remember how anxious I was to get out of my rental and into my new place. I hope everything finishes up well with the new house and you are in soon. You will love having a brand-new home!

NM- your stories about your mom and her thinking everything has prices from 50 years ago is so familiar to me. Not from my mother, but my SIL who passed a few years ago. She used to query me alot about the cost of things I was paying for (anything from a new car, to vacation, etc.) During the last 10-15 years of her life with her decline in health, she didn't do any bigger purchases (including travel arrangements) and lived decades earlier with costs. I hope you can get to visit your brother/her son as it's probably been a few years since they have seen each other. I am not sure I have heard he has come to visit much but think he got a new job and know with that, there is often little vacation time for awhile. You probably need to plan to drink some wine on the plane, and during your time in NC!

I have a couple little weekend junkets coming up, one with some girlfriends for a girl's weekend and another to Santa Fe for a weekend to enjoy a jazz concert with the NM Jazz Festival that is underway.

Wishing everyone a nice September and back when I can!

The cheap boxed wine (cab) from walmart is not the worst thing I've ever had.

First Draft:

“Operation: Carolina or Bust”

—A Mother-Daughter Travel Saga, Featuring Kiniption Kittens and Highway Hysteria

This week, I began organizing a trip to North Carolina for Mother and myself next month. I believe I now qualify for “totally insane.” If not, I will be by the time we get back home—assuming we survive the journey, the budget negotiations, and the six-lane highway panic attacks.

It all started innocently enough, with Mother announcing from her recliner like a general issuing orders from a war room:

Unfortunately, Uncle Kenny passed away peacefully in his sleep a few weeks ago, which meant Mother didn’t get that final visit. So now, all her emotional energy has been redirected toward seeing Kid Brother in North Carolina. And when Mother gets focused, it’s like trying to redirect a freight train with a salad fork.

Fine, I thought. We’ll make it happen. I started researching flights, hotels, rental cars—fully aware that this was going to cost way more than Mother would ever agree to pay. You see, her financial expectations are firmly rooted in the 1960s and 70s. Motel rooms over $30 a night? Highway robbery. Airfare over $100? Criminal. She still thinks you should be able to fly coast-to-coast for the price of a nice dinner and a handshake.

Luckily, I have a Delta companion certificate, so I can get us roundtrip, first class, for $500 each. For comparison, economy was $420. When I explained this to Mother, she nodded approvingly—clearly pleased that I’d found a loophole in the system. But then came the real problem:

Cue the kiniption kitten fit. To Mother, anything with more than two lanes is a death trap. She believes speed limits are merely suggestions made by reckless youth, and that driving over 45 mph is a felony offense. I once took her on a bypass and she clutched her purse like it was a parachute.

Still, we pressed on. Next step: booking a hotel. But not just any hotel. It must be:

• Less than 20 minutes from KB’s house

• Have a kitchen or kitchenette so we can fix our own breakfast

• Be close to a grocery store

• Have a pool

• Not be too close to a highway (because noise = danger)

• And be “reasonably priced,” which in Mother’s mind means around $15 a night

I’m not booking a hotel. I’m trying to manifest a unicorn.

And yet, despite all this, we’re going. Because Mother hasn’t seen KB in years, and she remembers every detail of their childhood—including the time he set the fireplace mantlepiece on fire. She misses him fiercely, and even though her memory is fading, her love for her family is as sharp as ever.

So I’ll pack snacks, maps, and a playlist of 1950s hits to soothe her nerves. I’ll tell her the pilot promised to stay under 45 mph, and that the hotel manager is named Maureen and knows our cousin from church. And if we survive the trip, I’ll write the sequel: “Return from Carolina: The Great Biscuit Debate.”