Sunday, November 20, 2011.
Packing For Nothing. Saintlessness.
The Saints didn't play today. Our only serious meal was breakfast, taken at Mattina Bella by the full four-person complement of our family. The place was packed when we arrived, forcing a fifteen-minute wait. I returned to the great crabmeat-and-mushroom poached egg dish that I halfway invented a month ago. (It was an omelette.) It's now on the menu.
Our entire scheme unraveled today, and mostly because of me. I spent the day churning out all the copy I need to have done before I leave. When I had to stop to rest my eyes, I got to work on packing. Or with fooling around with the gizmo the radio engineers gave me to get my Thanksgiving show on the air. The gizmo dials in to the radio station on a toll-free number. My usual device requires a calling card, which degrades the transmission so much that it's very difficult to get on the air. Also vexing me is my inability to discover from the hotel management whether they have dataports on their room phones--a must-have.
As I said, all this is mostly my fault. I committed to doing my Thanksgiving morning show, a tradition for eighteen years and something I think people will remember me by. Every year, dozens of folks tell me that part of their Thanksgiving tradition is listening to me and my family cook our dinner while they're cooking theirs.
On the other hand, Mary Ann says I ought to think more about my own family, let the radio show and all the rest of it go, and just relax for a week. She's right, up to the point where she believes that traveling with her is in any way relaxing. Fun, interesting, and memorable, yes. Calm, no. And I could use some relaxation.
When the sun went down, she said I looked miserable, and like I didn't want to go. I had to admit that I didn't. The weather forecast for New York showed heavy rain for three days, followed by high winds on Thanksgiving that might cancel the Macy's parade. The parade was the main reason we were going. Finally, I had forgotten that I was scheduled to do two major book signings this Saturday, but we weren't due to come back home until two days later.
I didn't want to wreck the plans, which included bookings for the hotel, flights, Broadway tickets, restaurant reservations, and who knows what else. I expected that they would all go without me, and I could gas out here.
But it turned out that I wasn't the only one who felt that way. Jude had no interest in going to New York. Mary Leigh was lukewarm, and when the decision was made that we were not going she wasn't disappointed at all.
Mary Ann, on the other hand, was not pleased, and her mood descended to about as low a point as mine. We would wind up having a grand week together at home. But the missed New York trip will never be forgotten.
