I had this bright idea that my mother, brother and I should go to New York City for Thanksgiving. I know that the holidays are going to be ver difficult this year, especially ones that have a strong family tradition to them, and Thanksgiving is the first one we’ll have to face.

Christmas won’t be easy, but because we’ll have my brother’s family with us for that day, it will be a little bit easier. It’s better with kids and Matilda and Keith are always the focus of that day. We alternate holidays with my sister-in-law’s family, so this year they will be with us for Christmas, but with her family for Thanksgiving.

Anyway, I found a package for New York City that sounded good, went to the travel agent and thought I had it all under control.

How wrong I can be!

As it turns out, all the restaurants offered with the package are blacked out for Thanksgiving. None of the hotels offered with the package are available either.

Now, my mother has certain specifications and one is that we stay in midtown. I told the travel agent that. She then proceeds to book a hotel that’s near the World Trade Center. Excuse me? That is NOT midtown.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and went on line. I surfed and checked for hours, discovering that hotel rates were outrageous. It would be one price on Wednesday night then jump by a couple hundred dollars for Thursday night! Finally I went to Priceline.com, made an offer (that was really low) and we’ve got a room at the Inter Continental Hotel at Park and 44th.

Works for me.

Now what I need to do is work on getting theater tickets and find a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner. My mother wants to go to Tavern on the Green, but they won’t accept a reservation until October.

The travel agent was less than happy with me.

But then she wasn’t willing to put in this kind of time and effort. I suppose the commission wasn’t going to be good enough.

I know it’s yet another trip to New York for me, and I know that many people don’t understand that. This one has most to do with my mother who for years and years has wanted to go to the Macy’s parade (so have I), but my father would never go. This will create a new memory for her and not have us sitting in the house feeling sad that my father isn’t with us.

New York City feeds my soul, gives me energy and renews me. I should actually live there, but I could never teach there. I’d love to work in the publishing world or the theater world and live there. To be a writer or theater person and use the creative energy of the city is a dream.

But in that I know that’s not a step I can take at this stage in my life I’ll just continue to make trips there whenever I can.

It’s not the ideal thing, but it will have to do.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day.

I need to stop at my mother’s and Velcro her blinds so they stop blowing in the wind. I’m not sure this is going to work, but it’s the only solution I can come up with at the moment. She just had matchstick blinds put up on the porch and they keep banging and blowing when the wind blows. My though is to Velcro the bottom of them to the wall and see if that will anchor them.

Then I have to meet Cathy for lunch at the Olive Garden. I’m really not up for that. It will be a litany of complaints about the pain her bunions are giving her, but how she can’t possibly manage alone if she has them operated on.

I hate to break it to her, but this is the nature of living a single life. You have to figure out ways to get around hurts and illnesses. If it means going up and down the stairs on your bum, then that’s what you have to do.

Just ask me. I’ve had all sorts of illnesses and injuries to deal with in the last twenty four years of living alone. You find a way to figure it out and then you rely on friends and family who are willing to lend a hand.

I hope I have the patience to listen to all that . I think she wants to go to lunch because she has a four-day weekend and is in a panic over having all that free time.

Then tomorrow night, I have to go to my brother’s house. He’s returning from twenty-one days in Europe and Matilda has decided that she is going to give him a surprise party. She is making a cake that says "Welcome Home", and we all have to come over and hide in the kitchen and yell "surprise" when he walks in the door.

Of course we will all indulge her in this.

She’s been a bit difficult the last few days. I was on the phone with her mother this afternoon and Matilda couldn’t find something she wanted, so she started to pitch a fit. My sister-in-law doesn’t put up with this and sent her to the "quiet space". As Matilda was being marched to her room she was screaming, "You’re not the boss of me!"

A diva in training.

I have piles and piles of clothes on my bed, I found some summer stuff and need to put away the winter stuff. There’s little chance that I’ll get this done before I go to bed tonight.

Which means more piles on the floor.

It’s really out of hand around here.