A Crazy Plan

It was probably a couple months ago when Kay suggested she come out here to visit me and then ride back with us to Nebraska when we visited there. I don't know how she ever thought that plan might work, since she has something going on almost every day of her life, but it was a nice idea. I still wish she would come out here. She's only come out once, in winter, during the absolute worst week of that whole season. It snowed and iced and wreaked all kinds of havoc, causing us to be housebound most of the time she was here.

That wasn't the only time the woman brought massive amounts of snow at an inopportune time. Before I moved to Pittsburgh, John went away on business for a week or so. Kay came over, and so did a blizzard. It snowed and snowed, and then the snow blew and drifted twelve to eighteen feet high. We were stranded with me shoveling through a literal wall of snow to even get out of the house. It was nice to have someone there with me other than baby Booie (Hammy was away to his father's), but I really wish Kay would stop bringing horribly shitty weather with her. Maybe it's best she doesn't visit. Really though, I'd risk it.

It seems unlikely I will get her out here anytime soon. She always has a million things going on at once, and I think it's even worse now that she has a daughter. I'm taking the dog to Nebraska with us, so I won't even have that little temptation to get her to visit me. Apparently I'm not enough. Sometimes I do feel bad about it, but I also know that I don't press the issue either. I know eventually, I will tire of being taken for granted in that respect and say something. That time has yet to come.

Since we couldn't work out an agreeable time for Kay to come out here, she got the crazy notion to meet us in Chicago on our drive to Nebraska and ride the rest of the way from there. I don't know what possessed her to come up with such an idea, but the thought of having an adult companion in the car with me for almost half the trip was very good.

The idea was the easy part. Planning it was a whole different beast. First, there were hotel arrangements. Not only was it a total pain in the ass for us to find one that wasn't going to put us in the poor house, but I wanted one that wasn't that far off the travel route. I was going to be driving ten hours as it was. I didn't want an additional hour or two through Chicago traffic. We also really wanted a hotel with a pool, but that was definitely optional, because we had an even more important concern. The dog. The dog created a while new, big problem. The closer we got to the area where we wanted to stay, the fewer hotels we found that allowed dogs. In fact, we could find none.

Kay does have a friend in the city, someone I happen to know. She said he has two dogs and might be willing to keep Kaya overnight. It was that or stay well outside the city and have to drive even more without getting to so much as eat dinner because we would have the dog in the car. So we decided on a hotel close to his house, pending his decision.

As expected, he said yes to boarding my doggy for a night and offered his (I'm sure quite lovely) futon for Kay and I and a large expanse of floor for the kids. Kay politely declined but did invite him to dinner with us that evening. All that planning took two full days between finding hotels, waiting for phone calls, and settling on a decision. In those two days, Kay's $22 plane ticket increased something like fifty bucks, a potential deal-killer, but Kay didn't care. The plan was a go.

From that point, it wasn't so crazy. I usually do stay somewhere on the Nebraska side of Chicago on my way out. The planning was the only crazy part, and we got that all worked out to everyone's satisfaction. But then my friend, Dina called. "Hey, Cindy! I can get that day off and thought I'd come out too, but I need to know if you'll have room in your truck, or if I need to get a round trip ticket." I didn't call this A Crazy Plan for nothing. I told Dina that sure, we could fit her in.

I could have easily told her that it would be way too crowded, but I would love to have her in Chicago for the evening. My friends, and especially Dina, are loony enough to do something like that, but I haven't seen Dina in ages. I missed visiting her last year, and she, Kay and I all together are just loads of fun. Our friendship is one of the things that make me most homesick. So of course, I told Dina we would sure as hell make room for her. I would pack less clothes if I had to, so the dog could ride comfortably in the back with the luggage. It won't be so comfortable sitting in that back seat with two kids, but Dina probably weighs little more than Hammy and won't mind anyway. It's going to be a fun eight hours, I think.

My mom thinks we're all insane, of course. I think that's what kids are supposed to make their moms think though, so I'm doing my job appropriately. I know lots of other people think we're nuts too, but we all know better. We know the value of our friendship. We know that eight hours in a cramped car with a dog is worth the time we will have catching up and just talking like friends do. We know that eight hours won't be enough. We know that we will be able to tell people about the time Kay and Dina flew out to Chicago for one afternoon and night just to take a ride with two kids, Kaya, and me all the way to Omaha and laugh. People might laugh at us, but we will laugh knowing what we gained.

Go ahead... make fun of me for being sappy. Tell me how ridiculous it is, that I'm not being realistic, that we've smoked some bad crack. But you know that you wish you could go too.