Cackle Quack

I'm sitting in a hotel in Morgantown. You don't know why. Yet.

It was a chain of events, really. One decision, leading to another, and another. Some choices aren't really choices--sure, you can say yes, or no, but you really...can't. I couldn't. So I'm sitting in a hotel at Morgantown.

My mom works at a Wound Care Center, and one of her patients is this 91 year old lady, whom I now call "Miss Mary." She's quite spunky, running all around and not letting anyone get the better of her. It turns out, though, that she needed a minor surgery that, despite being so minor, could not be done in Lewisburg. Due to its nature, she could also not drive after having this surgery.

From what I hear of her family, her daughter isn't the type to do much more than take mom's money. So she had no one to drive her, and was considering cancelling the surgery.

So she made the first choice in our line--she told my mom about her problems. Actually, now that I know her much, much better than I ever thought I would, she probably told everyone. So at this point our line of decisions isn't too specific.

For those of you who know my mom, you are already aware that she is the sweetest person ever. She tries to fix everyone's problems and make them happy, and usually she succeeds very well. So in her infinite kindness, she said--you know it--"My daughter is home for the summer, and she doesn't have anything to do." And miss Mary was so excited to hear that she didn't have to cancel her procedure

That was the second choice. It's funny how quickly your options start to narrow, and then disappear. In the course of their conversation following my mom's decision to mention my name, my options disappeared. There's only so far you can go before saying "No, I'd rather not" puts you in the same inescapable category as, say, Hitler. Or Satan.

So here I am. We're going home today. Maybe. We have an hour and a half left until we have to check out, and I am firm in my belief that it will take every single minute of that time for us to actually depart. We took 45 minutes to eat breakfast this morning. Bless her heart, and she keeps talking about stopping on the way home and eating again. Home, by the way, is 3 1/2 hours away.

Oh, and in case you think I'm an awful, impatient person, I had baby ducks hatching out when I left home. They are...well. I will definitely post again tonight with pictures. But the two that were out when I left would come running, when they saw me, and jump up in my lap, scrambling with their little webbed, clawed feet. They would curl up in the crook of my arm and nibble my wrist until they fell asleep, their heads turned so they could look up into my face. I fell in love, and right now I am jumping to get home. Because now there are eight wee duckies.

So that's why I'm sitting in a hotel in Morgantown. Still. There are forty minutes to checkout now. I'm actually not sure if we'll be home before five. Before we started on this adventure, I thought we'd be home at this point on Wednesday. The gods are laughing at me about now, howling and rolling around most likely.

Here goes. I'm going to try and get us home.