To New Mexico #1

Okay, folks, fasten your seat belts, put on your crash helmets, say a brief prayer, and get yourself fixed. As we used to say in the Old Country. Don’t worry. It’s not like what they do with dogs.

No. Today, I’m going to start the tale of our recent trip to New Mexico. And back. And a load o’stuff in ‘tween.

Heaps of fun.

You just wait and see.

*

So, here’s the thing: my parents are now getting on in years. Oh, they’re still hale and healthy and all that, but they are in what we so commonly and so hypocritically refer to as Their Golden Years. Though, come to think it, why not copper, zinc, or Yttrium? I’ve never known. In fact, truth be told, as it is so rarely, I’ve never no known what a Yttrium is, or how many Yitts are in a Rium and whether they’re better with mustard or sauerkraut.

But, anyway, now and then, we need to go visit my parents. This provides the opportunity for a number of things to happen, such as: a) we get to check on them, b) they get to check on us, c) Martha gets a bit of vacation, and d) I get to decide, once again, that my parents are wonderful people… who deserved a lot better kid than the piece of rotten dorf-burger that I am and it was a horrible accident of fate that I got born to them and didn’t get hatched as frog-specific toe nail fungus in Love Canal. And this is after several years of therapy. And enough Prozac to pulverize a pachyderm. Ah, Medical Science. Sigmund Freud would be proud.

Anyway, so we ought to go visit. The kicker? They are in New Mexico. We are in New England.

No problem, you say. You just get on a plane and go, right?

Well, sorta right. But there are a couple of other complications. First, both Martha and I teach. Most of my classes (in writing, as a rule) are online. So I can do those anywhere. But, this Spring and Summer I was also doing a U.S. history course that met in person and on Thursday afternoons and ran from four to six.

Martha, meanwhile, teaches at Tufts and has lots and lots classes and she can’t miss most of ‘em.

Ah, but there’s more. Martha also needs to be back from New Mexico in time to go to the Tufts graduation on Sunday, 17 May. You see, she’s faculty. And students (and their families, who pay bills) like to see faculty now and then. Preferably in caps and gowns. Makes ‘em seem so terribly learned. Little do they know. Ha. Chortle. Laugh. Etc., etc., and, of course, etc.

But, don’t tune out now, further complications are on the way. And in full living technocolor. I have to be back in town on Thursday, 14 May, to teach the last session of that U.S. History course that meets on Thursday. AND, the next morning, Friday, 15 May, at nine in the morning, I have to be downtown at Northeastern where I’m beginning a new class. Specifically, I’m doing another U.S. class, this time to fifteen Chinese exchange students. Many of whom speak very little English. But no stones tossed. My entire knowledge of Chinese boils down to “Ni hao,” which, I gather, means “hello.” At least that’s what it says on the Internet. For all I know it really means, “My left ear closely resembles a cod fish kissing a leprechaun.” Couldn’t say for sure. But it might explain some of the looks I get.

Anyway…but, we’ve still got a couple more wrinkles in the warf and woof. You remember I said that Martha had to be at Tufts on Sunday, 17 May? Well, that’s in the morning. In the afternoon, our own son, David Tillman Tucker, is ALSO graduating from college. He’s getting his Batchelor’s from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), and it’s been a long time coming, and we’ll be damned if we miss seeing him get his diploma. Well, actually, they don’t get diplomas at the SMFA graduation ceremony. They get flowers. Which, when you think about it, is sort of what you’d expect from an art school. That or a nice set of watercolors. And a brush. Or a chisel. With a cute little two ton block of marble. One to a grad. Be fun to watch ‘em carry it.

Okay, so, there you have the temporal parameters. But, there are spacial ones as well. We’re leaving from Boston’s Logan airport. That’s not something without its own challenges. Parking is expensive and there may not be any of it. Security is tight (the 9-11 attackers came from here, you’ll recall) which means lines are long. But, that, of course, is assuming that you can get to the airport in the first place. You see, Logan is basically on the same highway that leads in from the North into Boston proper. That means that the road is always, Always, ALWAYS crowded. Basically, at any one time you have one of three options: 1) bumper-to-bumper, 2) gridlocked, and 3)Bang Your Head Repeatedly With The Door So You’ll Be Unconscious And The Pain Will Go Away. (That’s one of my personal favs.)

Such being the case, it is usually easiest for us to drive to a hotel near the airport, stay the night, park the car in one of the long term lots around the area, and take a shuttle bus to ‘port in the morning. This is particularly true if it’s an early flight. At some ghastly hour. Say, three or four in the morning. Which it always is because God, in his wisdom, degreed on the eighth day of Creation that no plane shall leave Logan for Albuquerque save for at the most inconvenient times humanly (or inhumanly) possible. It’s a trial and a test for the faithful by which we shall prove our worthiness of heaven.

So, we’ve made reservations at just such a hotel.

Okay, but, now, let’s go over all this again. Let’s get it down so we’ve got it, as it were, straight.

We have to:

*Go to Albuquerque,

*BUT, we can’t leave until after six on 7 May,

*AND we have to be back no later than 13 May

*BECAUSE I have to teach a class on 14 May

*AND I have to start a new class on 15 May,

*AND Martha has to be at Tufts graduation on the morning of 17 May,

*BUT we BOTH have to be in downtown Boston that afternoon for our son’s graduation.

Got all that?

Now, you may have noticed that in all the above there ain’t much room for error. A slip up here, a slip up there, and the whole thing goes down like …well…like a bushel of bowling pins on the wrong end of a wrecking ball.

So…

Shall we have some foreshadowing here? Okay. Here it comes.

Gee. Golly. What’s that we just heard in the distance?

Why, it sounded for all the world like Godzilla and King Kong slamin’ down a couple o’ spares at the Smash & Crash Bowladrome.

Wonder what that means…

Onward and upward.




Copyright © 2009 Michael Jay Tucker