Straight No Chaser

When I heard Thursday night on the news that the Berkley Bridge was closed for the weekend I knew there were gonna be problems. To give Mom credit, she did offer to meet us at the Harrison Opera House so we didn't have to pick her up. Even though I considered it, we have so much fun together I just decided to pick her up anyway - even though we'd have to go through the Midtown tunnel to get her.

Five minutes before leaving, while I was brushing my teeth, this little fairy on my shoulder said to me, "Hey, since you have to pick up Mom and take her home, why don't you take Peanut with you and let him stay with Dad!" Uh huh - great idea, right? I thought so. Dad thought so too. (I've now come to the conclusion it was Peanut's little angel that put that idea in my head, cuz it surely wasn't mine looking after me!) Missy and I left at 6:00pm, giving us, what I thought was, plenty of time to pick up Mom and be at the venue before the show at 8:00. Sigh ... so not the case.

We were doing really well ... til we hit bumper to bumper Midtown tunnel traffic. After about 15 minutes of barely moving, I called Mom to tell her we would be late. Bless her heart, she again offered to meet us there so we wouldn't have to deal with the tunnel issue. Well, hellooooo! That was no longer an option because we had Peanut in the car! We had to take him to Dad! I was pretty frustrated - and yeah, that's putting it mildly. Rarely am I late for a concert. Tonight would be the exception.

After another 5 minutes or so of moving one to three car lengths at a time (and I'm sure that was only due to cars pulling out of the lane to turn around or go a different route), I pulled up to the next stop light and did a u-turn. The only other way I knew to get to Mom's would take me way around my elbow to get to my thumb - but it was either that or sit there. I don't do "sit there" well. It would take us another 30 minutes to get to Mom's back-tracking our steps ... and let me tell you, I was on a mission. I'm paranoid about other drivers coming in my lane anyway. You just never know what idiots are gonna do, and there is that blind spot factor to consider as well. Oh, and I guess I should say too that I talk to other drivers - talk, not yell - although sometimes I do cuss at them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know they can't hear me but it makes me feel better, okay? As I was passing (did a lot of that too) one vehicle, I put my hand on the horn and told the driver not to even think about coming in my lane. Missy got so tickled. Long story short, she laughed every time I blew the horn. So I started blowing it just to hear her laugh. She even took a photo of my hand on the horn to include in her journaling. LOL

Eventually we did make it to Mom's. Having no idea what we'd find when going back through the tunnel, we left quickly. Amazingly, east-bound it wasn't bad at all. In fact, traffic seemed to be flowing smoothly in both directions. I thought the back-up west-bound would be gone. It wasn't. It was just as bad as when we were stuck. Strange. It's now around 8:00pm and I know we're gonna be late. But finally we made it to the Harrison Opera House and, of course, there's no parking. We had to park on the street about 1/2 mile (at least it seemed like it) away. By about 8:15 - 8:20 we were finally in our seats. We missed several songs, but the rest of the show was wonderful! Those guys truly are artists and performers and they did a fabulous job of entertaining us. I'd see them again in a heartbeat. If you don't know who Straight No Chaser is, check out their website and tons of youtube videos.

Missy and I left Mom's around 11:30pm to go home. As usual, we were pretty wired after a concert so it was around 2am before we headed to bed. Morning came pretty early ...