A Reversal of Roles

Traveling with my mom, who is in her mid-60s, is a bit like traveling with a 7-year-old. Like I said, 90% of the time we got along splendidly. The other 10% of the time, well, kind of painful.

Check. Double check. I nearly had a stiff neck from checking that she was still behind me. Before we left, my dad gave me the Robert DeNiro-to-Ben Stiller “I’m watching you, Focker.” Except he said, “Heidi…watch her.” No pressure, Dad.






A lot of the time I offered up my arm, which she thought was sweet since her knees bother her and she sometimes has trouble walking. But really, I just wanted to make sure she was hanging on and not getting run over by any of the million bicycles, mopeds, and taxis.

I’m not lying when I say that I grabbed her little butter-yellow quilted backpack (Vera Bradley, nay. This came directly from a craft show.) by the handle to yank her back onto a sidewalk. 

Snacktime. She’s always ready for a snack. Preferably ice cream. Or candy. Or Belgian waffles.



She takes a lot of naps. We watched a 15-minute movie about building some crazy water blocking system and my mom snored.



She also has no filter. Case in point, the Van Gogh museum. As we looked at the masterpieces of Van Gogh, my mom looked kind of bored. Flowers, scenery, meh.

Then she spotted one painting of some onions on a kitchen table that he had painted and her eyes lit up. She exclaimed, “See Heidi? And you say that the pictures I take of the kitchen sink aren’t art! See? He painted onions! My pictures of strawberries and apple peelings are just as good!” I had to say quietly, “Mom, I can assure you, the pictures you take of FOOD SCRAPS are not equal to a VAN GOGH painting.”

 

She wanders. Despite my best efforts, my mom occasionally thwarted my watchful eye. One day, we walked around the Keukenhof Gardens. 32 hectares, 4.5 million tulips in 100 varieties, and we walked almost all of it. As we were about to leave, she wanted to stop in one last souvenir shop.

While I tried on a sweatshirt, I saw her walk out of the shop, through the exit turnstile, and out of the park. Knowing she was headed to the meeting spot with the rest of our group, I stood in line, blood boiling, dejected, and paid for my purchase.

When I exited the park, I saw my mom standing immediately outside the gate looking like a small, relieved child who sees her parent and immediately scolded her. I found myself saying, “Never leave the park! Never leave without me! If I hadn’t seen you walk past, I wouldn’t have known where you were. Stand at the gate and look for our group, but NEVER go through the turnstiles!”

All she could say was, “I know, I know, I’m sorry, I got worried that you left, I don’t know what I was thinking.”



Organization? What organization? My mom prides herself on her organization. When she moved Granny B 6 times in 2 years, she had a system. Everything would get wrapped, placed in a box, and written on a piece of paper. The box and paper would get labeled (Box 2), so she had a record of exactly what was in every box.

 This…is not the case when she travels. “Where’s my passport?” “Where’s my keycard?” ”Where’s my boarding pass?” By the end of the trip, it had been decided that any important paperwork would reside with me and I would present both my mom’s and my ID at the security gates.

She does not like beer. On the trip, I was present for my mom’s first beer at the Heinekin Brewery tour. She was not a fan.

You know how everyone’s first beer is pure dreck and they eventually get used to the taste? Well…by the time of the Belgian beer tasting, she was still not a fan. Maybe next time. I did get a great picture of her enjoying hot tea while I enjoyed an ice cold Belgian beer, though.

 





LOST (and found). Each day our cruise director would provide a local map of the area as well as an itinerary of activities and meals. Each day, I would grab these and fold them into my bag. Anyone that knows me, knows I rely heavily on my GPS in the car. But when walking around a foreign town, I can rock the shit out of a basic map and get us from Point A to Point B.

So when my mom said, “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” followed up 10 minutes later with, “I don’t think this is right. Excuse me, sir, which way to the….” only to have him point us in the direction I was taking us, I became infuriated. One day, I couldn’t take it. I handed over the map and said, “If you think we’re so lost, here, you take it and find our way back to the bus.”



Of course she was immediately flustered, turning the map upside down, head twitching back and forth like a pigeon, saying, “I can’t read this. What street are we on? Where do we need to go?” Only for me to say, “I don’t think this is right. Are you sure you know where you’re going?” as soon as she picked a direction. It wasn’t pretty.

But we found an ice cream shop, I took over the map reading, and she was happy again.

Mom Z. Hits the Red Light District

I just returned from a two-week vacation. Or whatever you would call 12 days with my mom on a river in Europe with literally a boatload of 55+ passengers.

This all started about a year ago when I was chatting with my mom and my aunt in LA buzzed in her call waiting. My mom said simply, “Oh, that’s probably your Aunt Karen asking if I want to go on that riverboat cruise in Holland. I’ll call her back later.” Um, riverboat cruise? Holland? Hold up.




To which she replied, “She wants to know if your dad and I want to go. He doesn’t, so I guess we won’t go.” Aghast, I asked if she could bring anyone else and she said, “No one else wanted to go.” To which I asked in a high-pitched voice, “No one? Who did you ask?” She said, “Well your dad….and Brandy (her friend) ….and…uh…well I guess that’s it.” In an even higher pitch, I squeaked, “And me? What about me?”

So she said, “Oh….you? Would you want to go?” And in a ranting torrent I replied, “YES!YESIWOULDWANTTOGO! SIGNMEUP! SIGNMEUPNOW!”

And that’s how I joined the 55+ Tulips and Windmills Viking Cruise.

Afterwards, I began to have doubts about the trip, such as:

• My mom and I BOTH get seasick. We can barely handle the log flume, let alone an actual ship. I had been on a Royal Caribbean cruise a few years ago and despite everyone saying “you can’t even feel the rocking,” I could DEFINITELY feel it. And so could my stomach. I spent the first few nights in bed by 9 because I had overdosed on Dramamine.
• My mom (and aunt) have terrible arthritis in their knees. And in the schedule of activities, there were walking tours nearly every morning.
• I love my mom. But I tend to love her more when I’m living 6 hours away. Not 12 days straight.
• This cruise was specifically for the 55+ age group. There were good odds I would be the youngest person on the cruise, aside from the staff. So I’d be raring to go out and the AARP group would be tucked in bed.
• My mom snores and I am a light sleeper. I had shared a room with her before and, despite listening to an mp3 player, having driven 9 hours, and taking over-the-counter sleep pills, I slept for maybe 40 minutes.
• Country mouse/big city. My mom had never been to Europe. Or out of the country (minus Aruba last year). When she had been to Boston, it was an effort to keep her from walking into traffic when she was “just trying to take a picture.”
• We have separate interests. Hers involve lace museums, mine involve beer tastings.

Despite all these things, we had a wonderful trip. Turns out:

• With a river cruise, you really CAN’T feel any rocking. The only time I needed my SeaBands (wrist bands with acupressure points to help with motion sickness), was on the flight home when I felt my stomach drop with each drop in altitude. I was sweating like a hog in August next in line for the chopping block. Not cute.
• My mom was a champ and not only walked with the rest of the group, but insisted on walking to the top of castles, windmills, and the Anne Frank house. She said more than once, “Heidi, I didn’t come all the way over here NOT to go to the top!”
• I’ll admit, there were times when I snapped at my poor mother. Luckily, that was only 10% of the time, the other 90% of the time we thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.

• Due to all the walking, my mom and I were BOTH in bed by 10:30 every night. The AARP crowd, on the other hand, was doing line dances and playing poker until 2 am every night.
• I slept. By going to bed 30 minutes earlier than her, wearing Bose noise-blocking ear buds, listening to a white noise FM station on full volume on my mp3 player, and prescription sleeping pills.
• Ok, my mom was nearly run over. Several times. By several types of transportation. Luckily, her butter yellow quilted backpack (from a craft show, not a Vera Bradley) had a hand loop, which I used to pull her back from catastrophe.
• We compromised. I went into lace shops with her, she had her first beer at the Heinekin Factory Tour with me.

Of course, aside from visiting the Anne Frank house and the Van Gogh museum, one of the highlights of Amsterdam is the Red Light District. Which we visited. At her request.

As we walked down the street into the first section of black-lit windows, I thought to myself not “This is inappropriate. She shouldn’t be here.” I thought, “Wait for it….wait for it…she doesn’t see them yet….”

Her response was classic: HOLY SHIT! THEY’RE REALLY IN THERE!

Mouth agape, she pronounced, “And they’re pretty! I thought they’d be all skaggy! But they’re really very attractive!” I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.

Please note, my mom is licking her lip lasciviously and seductively unzipping her Tinkerbell sweatshirt.



When I asked her what her favorite part of the trip was, she said honestly, “Golly gee Heidi, all of it! The architecture! The people! The food! The tours! Just all of it!”