The only living boy in New York


Back in the Empire State

So, #1-Son is spending his second long weekend in a row in New York. This time he's in NYC, doing what all good tourists do and performing at Carnegie Hall. They flew out yesterday morning; they're touring Ellis and Liberty Islands today, going to see Phantom of the Opera tonight, performing and watching others perform tomorrow, and coming home Sunday afternoon. He and his sister were texting last night after supper, and he says the hotel room he and three other boys are in is really only big enough for two (spoiled, he is), New York is very big, and his feet hurt. Wait until he has to walk from the hotel to Carnegie Hall in his dress shoes Saturday afternoon.

He was so sweet Wednesday night. He came up behind me while I was on the computer, grabbed me in a big hug, and asked, "Are you going to miss me?" I answered, "My #1-Son? Of course I'm going to miss you. Something fierce." I'll tell you who is really missing him -- his baby sister. She demanded his itinerary so she'd know when she could text him and expect him to answer, and since it was piled in with the list of restaurants they'd suggested and the address of his hotel, she's down on the kids' computer right this minute Google-mapping everything. She just whined at me up the stairs, "Mommmm, there are busses parked in front of Carnegie Hall in Street View so I can't see what it looks like!" I told her to search Google Images. Really, who's the 21st-century girl here? And she gives me grief because I don't text fast enough for her... Anyway, over this past school year she's decided he's one of her best buddies. She grabs him in the halls at school when they pass (he complains, but can't get away because she's bigger; I've told him he still has bigger feet and should just stomp on hers.) And her reaction when she saw his senior portraits was, "That's so weird. I'm not used to my brother being a cutie."

But last weekend -- oy, that's the sort of excitement one can live without. I spent five hours in the sort of state one usually deals with when notified that an out-of-town relative has been hauled to the E.R.

The Rensselear Polytechnic accepted-students day was last Saturday, and since #1-Son had never been on campus and Hubs was already on the East Coast, we flew him into Boston on Friday afternoon and Hubs was to fly in from D.C. to meet him, then they'd drive to Albany that night and visit the campus the next day. Unfortunately, the eastern seaboard was experiencing some horrible weather that Friday. #1 got up and down on time, but Hubs couldn't get out of D.C.! They finally cancelled the flight before his when it came up to the time for the scheduled departure for his. He phoned me in a panic (because, y'know, misery loves company, not that there was a thing I could do) because #1 was still in the air at the time. Hubs' flight was questionable but still on the board, but there were no more seats on D.C. - Boston flights until Sunday should his flight be cancelled, and it's an 8-hour drive from D.C. to Boston. Panic at the disco, baby.

Me, I have internet friends all over. In fact, I have a good one in Boston, a nice woman about a decade younger than I am, with one boy having the same sort of behavioral problems #1-Son had in elementary school. We started as mutual Doctor Who friends, but discovered we have a lot of other things in common, like the boys. So I e-mailed her, and bless her heart, she told me that should Hubs' flight be cancelled, she'd send her husband to Logan to scoop up #1-Son and bed him down on her couch until Hubs could make the drive up to Boston. And she basically held my hand by IM and texting (#2-Son had an outing with his autistic-teens group) until Hubs texted that his plane was finally backing away from the gate (3.5 hours late), and I let her know an hour and a half after that when Hubs hit the ground in Boston.

I need to make a trip to Boston, just to hug this woman and buy her many, many drinks.

Posted: Fri - April 10, 2009 at 10:55 AM   Home         | | View Technorati reactions

©