Poppy Mom

While I throw a ball to a dingo

My mom's birthday shopping for her best friend's birthday. Clara Jane? Napping. Dad just spent half an hour on the phone with a buddy of his in Bristol, Tennessee, discussing how his boss is the kind of guy whose head he would have stuck in a toilet when he was in high school. And I'm sitting here, mindlessly throwing a slobbery tennis ball for the dingo, who never. gets. tired. ever., instead of driving to KC. Which is fine. I would have loved to see the non-emailing. Big Daddy B. today, but the weather's crappy and I'm tired. I'm also wondering if the subject of my April article is ever going to finish answering my interview questions, as I'm several days past deadline. No vacation for me, no sir.

I will be escaping to a local yarn shop as soon as my mom returns from her shopping mission, though. The yarn shop is in an auto body shop, but then again, aren't all great yarn shops?

The train ride was great. Clara "Hobocamp" Jane absolutely loved it. She sat in her very own seat with a view of the Missouri River, with her very own tray table full of books and Cheerios. She spent a good portion of the trip standing in her seat, hands pressed against the window, jumping and squealing in delight.

There was one incident. There was so much to see and so much excitment that she fought the urge to nap until it was too late. Then she screamed and cried the cry of the damned. You know the one, complete with tears, snot, drool and sweat, all while frantically doing the sign for "sleep" with both hands. I finally threw a blanket over her head and she promptly passed out. The same trick works with Murphy.

We shared half of the train trip with a bunch of teenage girls from an organization I won't name. Let's just say that the Village People sang about them. The organization, not the girls. The Village People never sang about girls. I'm not mentioning the organization by name because if I can't say anything nice I'd rather it not show up on a search engine. Suffice it to say that these girls and their handlers were r.u.d.e. rude. While boarding the train, did they offer any help to me while I struggled with baby, stroller, suitcase and messenger bag? Nope. In fact, they shoved me. While I wrangled all my crap, the conductor asked their adult-leader-type person if she needed any help. "Well, I do, but we're not allowed to accept help," she said.

Now, wouldn't a simple "No, thank you," been a better answer, instead of tossing some self-pity into the mix? And apparently this anti-helping policy applies to offering it, too.

But that's not what really bugged me. We were on the same train car as them. During the trip several of them came stomping down the aisle. Clara Jane got so excited, social butterfly that she is. I was holding her, and she flashed her biggest, happiest grin at the girls. Did any of them so much as acknowledge her? Nope. Now, it might be just me, feeling disgruntled from my first experience of seeing the smile fall from my child's face because she was passed by without so much as a glance, but it doesn't seem to me that those girls were putting Christian principles into practice in a way that builds healthy spirit, mind and body for all, now, does it?

And some of them laughed when Clara Jane had her napless meltdown. There's a special place in hell for people who do that.

Luckily, the uppity girls left in Jefferson City and were replaced by a pack of Cub Scouts. Even while running up and down the aisles as 10-yhear-old caffiene-fueled boys are wont to do, they still had better manners than the girls and their leaders.

My mom called my cell phone towards the end of the trip. "Amtrak's website says your 15 minutes away. Where are you?"

I looked out the window. "Someplace with absolutely no light. It's not Jeff. City."

"Well, I'll leave for the station in a bit." And then we were disconnected just as the conductor came along to inform me that we had just entered my hometown.

I called my mom and she answered the phone with, "Oh my God! Is that your train I hear?"

"Why, yes it is!"

She was just pulling out of the driveway and claims to have rounded one of the corners on two wheels. I bet she also took Dad's truck on a couple of sweet jumps, but she doesn't want to seem a braggart.

The train station in my hometown isn't so much a station as a big slab of poorly lit concrete in the worst part of town. When my mom arrived, Clara Jane and I were standing exactly where the conductor had dropped my luggage, far from the one light in the parking lot, feeling a smidge bit stranded.

And yet, I had absolutely no desire to stagger around on the train tracks.

Tomorrow afternoon, we board again. This time I know where to sit to get the best view of the scenery, and how to get Clara "Hulk" Jane to take a nap before she gets angrysleepy. You wouldn't like her when she's angrysleepy. And this time, I'm bringing a pea shooter to use on any young mens Christan association members who piss me off or laugh at my kid. We'll just see how much fun it is to stay at their place when that happens, now, won't we?

Posted by Robin at March 10, 2005 03:06 PM | TrackBack