pre-holiday travel and food (lyn)

I check the scale before leaving.  120.  I know it will read higher the next time I’m on it.

Today we are flying to Boston.  It was actually less money than taking Amtrak.  We are leaving from Kennedy with little luggage so we decide to try out public transportation.  Our plane departs at 12:30 so we leave the house at 9.  This time it’s not just my mother telling us to get to the airport early.  Newspapers and television seem focused on the new security measures at the airport.  Pat downs and scanning machines and “the busiest travel day of the year” combine to make getting to the airport early essential.

I pack a lunch of bagel thins, cream cheese, and lox.  We take a bus to the subway, the subway to the airtrain, and the airtrain to the Delta terminal.  We whiz through check-in (no scans or pat downs) and are at the gate, all checked in and ready to go by 11.  We spend the next hour and a half waiting.  My mother would be proud.  For her, being 90 minutes early is just about right.

The flight is on time but the driver my mom has arranged for us is not.  More waiting and now we are hungry.  We find Legal Seafoods and Alexander gets a Caesar salad and I ponder the tuna wrap.  In the end, I decide to skip the calories and have instead a 2-point Weight Watchers Sweet and Salty that I'd thrown in my bag before leaving.

We arrive at my parents around 4:30.  We could have flown to Italy in the time it's taken to get to the Cape.  My sisters and their families are coming tomorrow.  We only have a few things to unpack and my mom wants to have dinner now.  It takes a major effort to persuade her to wait until 5:30. 

At exactly that time, as if some loud alarm has gone off and everyone has ignored it, my mother declares with impatience, "C'mon, let's go.  It’s 5:30."  The urgency in her voice suggests that the restaurant is taking its last reservation at 5:40 which of course is not true.

There's an easy consensus on the restaurant we choose, Bobby Byrnes.  We all have burgers and fries.  I feel thin and good and decide that this Thanksgiving I'm going to enjoy the food as well as the company.  It’s a nice start to the long weekend ahead.