| The reunion, number nine |
 Dan's getting cranky. He's OD-ing on my family and is frustrated that we don't have a vehicle large enough to fit everyone in. We decide to rent a car the next day so that we aren't confined to my mother's house for our second week in the USA.
I get on the phone and call around. Enterprise has a car - unlimited mileage for a weekly rate. Yay! We go to Enterprise to get the car, which is waiting for us. We fill out the paperwork and are shown our car - a brand new Chrysler PT Cruiser with only eight miles on the odometer. We love it. Our faces fall, though when we see it's not unlimited mileage after all. We pay $240 plus $180 insurance for a 1,000 mile limit. There goes our plan to drive all over New England. We're annoyed, but glad we have a car that everyone can fit into at this point.
We've got the afternoon to ourselves, so Ian and Sabrina climb in and we drive off to Mystic, an historical whaling town. By the time we get there, it's late afternoon and the seaport village closes in a couple of hours. Not worth the $27 admission fee. We decide to go into the center of town and look around. We hit Mystic at a good time. There's a Food Festival in progress, and the stalls open in about an hour.
In the meantime, we stroll across the bridge and walk up to Mystic Pizza. The same one from the movie. I take some photos. We enter a jewelry store - one that carries estate jewelry. I get all excited - they carry matching pieces to the carved quartz bracelet that my mother gave to me. The bracelet once belonged to my grandmother. It's white gold with a little diamond chip in it. Carved quartz was popular in the 1920's. I'm surprised to see that it's held its value over time. The shop has matching rings and brooches. I'm afraid to splurge on a matching piece, and, of course, later regret my timidity. I don't know if I'll ever find matching pieces again. My grandmother would be scolding me now. Or she would have bought a matching ring and be done with it. She was like that.
We have some homemade icecream and then wander over to the streets lined with food tents. The area restaurants are raising money for charity, so we buy tickets and decide to stay to sample the area specialties. I am amazed. $20 feeds four people very well. Dan has pizza. Ian and Sabrina share a huge skewer of tandoori chicken as well as pie, and I eat a giant stuffed portobello mushroom that was to die for. Live music wafts over the crowd. It's all just very pleasant.
The sun sets and we sit by the water's edge and watch the bridge open for tall-masted sailboats. A tightly-corseted woman about age 55 walks past. She must have a 17 inch waist. I wonder how long it's taken her to train her waist to be that small. It looks unnatural, but I shrug my shoulders. Everybody's gotta have something to obsess over, I muse.
We leave Mystic and drive home. Dan snaps at me when I react to him veering into another lane of traffic. I know he's tired. But I'm pissed off that he snapped at me in the car in front of my son and daughter-in-law. I don't say a word to him the rest of the night. The lack of sleep is catching up to us.
(to be continued...) |
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Name: Melanie O.
Home: Durham, North Carolina, United States
About Me: Female, American health and beauty-conscious professional who has rekindled a childhood love of dolls.
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posted by Melanie O. at 
