Adventures in the Big City

I took Mom to New York Saturday for my cousin's baby shower. Yes, it involved a drive through hellish traffic and a 25-minute subway ride each way to a destination fairly foreign to me -- Brooklyn! -- but it was a smallish affair, outdoors, and she wanted to go so badly I decided we would go for it. I mean, I wanted to go, too, but anything to do with babies, she's all over like white on rice.

Though Mom can get confused in crowds, particularly at restaurants, her behavior hasn't crossed over into outlandish or belligerent. She has, however, started to suffer from incontinence, making a city trip particularly challenging. I made sure we peed at every opportunity, from the car park to the porta-potty at the shower's outdoor location. She has trouble affixing her Safety Friends, as I call the pads, so I helped her out with that, which brought back uncomfortable flashbacks to my own puberty.

I did worry now and then about being beat up in the subway. She grinned a little too widely at the half-drunk dudes yukking it up over some lewd joke in a corner, and when a zaftig young lady wended her way across the lurching car, said a little too loudly: "She's a plumper. Fatty!"

Later, she leaned across to me and said, indicating a woman reading in Chinese across the aisle: "Does she understand that?!"

Mom always was a trooper when it came to travelling, though, and this day was no exception. Her gait may be unsteady, but she can run (and push) her way to an open subway door with the best of 'em. Later, inching our way across the George Washington Bridge, we both burst into song spontaneously, simultaneously:

You can't hide your lyin' eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lyin eyes

All in all, a grand adventure.