I wrote yesterday about my ambivalence toward Mother’s Day – my ongoing troubled relationship with motherhood, not to mention the strained relationship I’ve had with my mom since her bout with covid, and then there’s that whole canceled vacation thing, etc. This was also going to be the last Mother’s Day I spent with my kids living at home – unless there are surprises, of course – so I tried to make the best of it. We had Plans. Only this is how our day went.

We went out for brunch at a place that I’ve wanted to go back to for over two years, only to find that the wait was 2.5 hours long at the place I wanted to go, which would conflict with our next event scheduled for 3 hrs from then. So instead, we went home and just had a late breakfast at home. Jason made some scones with clotted cream, and I had gluten-full, dairy-full deliciousness knowing that I would likely not feel great over the next few days, but f-ck it.

In early afternoon, we had an escape room scheduled. The place we went to back in 2019 (also for Mother’s Day) closed down during the pandemic, so we’d found another location close to us and chose their hardest room. An evil witch had stolen four people and captured their souls, turning them into voodoo dolls, complete with every awful cringy stereotype you can imagine. Heh. It was silly and way over the top, but that part I didn’t mind. The part that was disappointing was that for their “hardest” room, there were very few puzzles to solve. Most of it was overly simplified – more manual labor tasks than brain work. I think the boys enjoyed a lot of it, though.

After a brief interlude home to feed the kittens, we went out to a mid-afternoon lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant that we really like. Then we came home and had a lazy afternoon until Jason and the boys left to see a movie. (Maybe this seems weird, but them giving me a few hours of quiet time was actually perfect.) I did some photography work (below) and watched crappy SVU reruns and talked with each of my parents. This last part is when the irony of the day comes full circle.

My youngest son has accepted his place at the University of New Brunswick this fall. Jason and I, not considering that Canadian schools might start their semester at a different time than American universities, rescheduled our Alaskan vacation we were meant to be starting yesterday to early September. By then, Ambrose would be done with basic training and off to wherever he goes next, and Laurence would have gone up to Canada in mid-August for school. Ha. Ha. Ha. While I was on the phone with my dad, he asked me when Laurence’s semester started. I didn’t know, so I looked it up…only to find out that it starts smack in the middle of our scheduled vacation.

OMFG.

What is this, like the sixth time we’ve had to cancel and reschedule?? Is this vacation ever going to happen? Literally we’d just booked our flight and hotel the day before, and now we need to cancel everything again. I’m not even sure we’re going to rebook at this point. I’m just…tired.