4 day trip to visit mum....

My mother is 76 and has retired to the Gold Coast - Australia's version of Florida.  It is a 2 hour flight and this week my daughter Vaya and I flew up there to spend 4 days with her as she can no longer travel.


I knew the visit was doomed from the minute we emerged from Arrivals at Coolangatta Airport.  The plan was for her to do a drive through pick up so she wouldnt have to park and walk.  In typical Mr Bean style she always always messes up.  So, as we head to the baggage claim I look up and see her puffed, flustered and sweating just ahead,  She was frantically scanning the crowds for us.  We spotted each other at the same time.

We went to her and all she could do was tumble out a garbled explanation that neither I nor my daughter could fully grasp.  We figured that she  had turned up at the airport and somehow parked in the rentals area. So, stressed out she comes inside the airport in her shorts and t-shirt singlet top, with NO bra, to tell us she is parked in the wrong area and will go and sit in the car in case someone comes along. We are relieved at this solution - who wants to stand at the carousel with a sweaty 70 -something year old in no bra.  We collect our luggage and walk outside to find her parked front and centre of the rentals bay with the engine running - I was tempted to ask if she had held up the currency exchange counter but decide the one hour explanation I would have to give was not worth it.

Luggage loaded we put her in the front passenger seat to navigate us out of there (big mistake) and Vaya took the wheel.  I flopped into the back and braced myself.

As we headed to the car park exit there is a boom gate.  WE have no ticket, we are NOT in a rental and my mother is talking at the rate and volume of a machine gun offering possible solutions and excuses to be offered to the man at the gate.  One of her gems is to tell the guy that she is old and stupid.  She is not convinced this would work - we ARE. Since there was no man at the gate my wonderful offspring soothed and cooed at her Nanna not to worry it would be alright and casually leaned out the window and pressed the assitance button.  Exactly 2 seconds later the boom gate went up.  No one spoke, no one argued, no one asked, no one yelled.  Vaya looks at her Nanna and says "see Nanna, simple".  I burst with pride and smirked the whole way home.  But the ball is rolling now and I know its gonna be one helluva ride.

I should clarify here that my mother is Greek and migrated here about 54 years ago.  She speaks perfect (well maybe not so perfect) but heavily accented english and had a career here as a social worker.  So she is not a woman to be trifled with.  She IS however, a woman to be laughed at - behind her back of course as she has NO sense of humour unless she is telling the joke.

So when she uses the word porcupines for concubines (re Tiger Woods coming to Australia with his porcupines +mother) it is all one can do to stop from snorting a guffaw and spraying coffee all over the place.

And when it transpires that the reason her portable handsets don't work is that she threw out the rechargeable batteries and replaced them with regular batteries then wondered why the handset wouldn't charge, you have to suddenly fake a sneeze or burp, or fart even, to cover up the snicker.  Vaya and I were wondering why the house hadn't blown up.  Regular batteries in a charger for a week - NOT GOOD!!!

On the first morning I was the first one awake so got my breakfast and settled at the kitchen table to read from my Kindle.  Half an hour later mum appears around the corner and says -
"Good morning.  Do you get constipated?" 
She walks past and goes to the pantry as my contorted face threatens to implode. I manage to say "No".
"I have this digestive stuff that you put on the cereal if you get constipated".
"I don't get constipated".
"I don't take it every day, but about every 3-4 days.  It helps me with my diverticulitis".
"That's good", I say, "but I do not get constipated".
"Ok", says she "but it is here if you need it".

I get up and make another cup of coffee.  I'm gonna need it.

Ten minutes later she is spruiking her fluid tablets.  Since I have rheumatoid arthritis my feet are always swollen.  She has diagnosed fluid retention.  Four nothankyous later I swallow half of one tablet. three hours later I go to the bathroom to pee.....once........!  "See", she says triumphantly 'I told you they would work.


As we cooked up a storm on day 2 I blurted out that the reason I had asked her to show me how to cook certain recipes was that all the oldies were dead now and I had to take up the baton of cooking the family recipes. She retorts " I am not dead.  (long pause) I am like the last of the Mokihans'.   My daughter pulled a stomach muscle from suppressing her guffaws in the next room.

One evening we sat down to watch some TV and she actually gave US the remote to choose something.  Vaya put on "Modern Family" and as the show was starting the usual censor's warnings popped up advising there would be sexual references.  "Oh, are we going to watch something with sexual references?" says Mum nervously.  "Don't worry Nanna", says my angel. "I think you can handle it".  "Oh" says the 76 year old, 'Ok we'll see". I suddenly had a mad craving for coffee and ran to the kitchen.  When the 2 second 'sexual references' incident occurs on the show guess who laughed the loudest?

Did I mention that my mother is a 76yo living alone in retirement in a whole 3br house?  Well she is.  So naturally the whole house is laid out to suit her daily rhythms and routines.  But when I asked for a dictionary to translate a greek word she had used that I have long forgotten the meaning of, guess where the dictionary was.......

 ....In the napkin holder of course.  Explanation - she needs it when reading the english papers sometimes and this way she doesn't have to get up.  Naturally !!!

There were so so so so so many little instances like these.  I don't know which ones to pick out.

But I will leave you with the cockroach story....No? Don't want to hear it?  Ok then I won't gross you out with that one.

At the end of the day we had a visit which my daughter was able to tweet incessantly about.  We also left with extra luggage as my mother cleaned out her cupboards.  I packed 3 extra handbags, another wallet, a manicure set, 2 packs of Panamax, 2 European pillow cases she doesn't need, assorted sweets, a pair of pressure stockings, 2 tubs of greek shortbread, another tub of greek dumplings, aniseed lollies for my son, sesame bars because she knows I like them and a list of items we are to collect next time we road-trip it up there asd they are too fragile.

Here are some pics from the plane trips......

 On the way up there......

and on the way back.  The return trip we sat over the wing had some pretty crazy turbulence.