Travels with Donna, Part 1

For those of you whom I didn't email while I was traveling with my mother, here are parts one and two of our adventures a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy:


Part 1: Shuttle-Butt and the Giant Panties



It began on a shuttle bus in Philadelphia. Up until then, I had thought the trip was going remarkably well: almost eerily normal. As some of you will remember this time three years ago, our previous trips have not all started this way, but with just one bag apiece, no apparent sign of bee-keeping apparel or the flags of minor duchies, and a smooth flight from DCA to Philadelphia, the trip had a surprisingly un-Donna feel to it.

It was as I was starting to relax and look forward ten days of greenery and vacation when we boarded a bus from terminal F to terminal A at the Philadelphia airport. Because we were the last on the bus, and because no one has manners enough to give up their seat to my poor, old mother, Donna and I stood in the center aisle as the vehicle lurched to its start. Well, one of us stood: Donna, having not been on public transportation of any kind since the 1960s, didn’t quite have her sea legs. She seemed surprised, if not baffled, by the fact that buses took turns. She seemed to forget that, having great inertia, her body was apt to sway from side to side with the motion of the bus. Each time she would take her hand off the rail, she would totter backwards, laugh, and assume the “oh no I’m going to pee in my pants” stance. As that event was surely a real possibility, I tried not to make eye contact with the men standing behind her, wanting neither to invite their curiosity nor allow them to remember my face should I have to appear in a line-up one day as an associate of the woman who either toppled them like bowling pins or ruined their Italian leather shoes. We made it to our gate after many reminders for her to keep her hands on the railing, and eventually boarded the plane.

The next 8 hours or so proceeded in relative normalcy, and I found myself relaxing into a false sense of calm: side mirrors were still in tact, we had enough energy to push on, and nothing embarrassing had been done in several hours. (I should note that, on the plane, I was the one who accidentally opened my salad dressing onto the kind man sitting next to me. I still insist that Don is the most like my mother, however, and should one need proof ask yourself what he’s doing at this very moment. I’d put all the tea in china down that he’s at her house watching Charlie Rose with both dogs at his feet, wiping something from the front of his polo shirt). We passed Loch Lomond, met two Newfoundlands who barked incessantly at Donna’s glittering gold jewelry, and went to Dunstaffnage Castle near Oban. Sitting at the end of Loch Lomond, Dunstaffnage has the advantage of both a beautiful and strategic location. A small marina sits near the entrance where contemporaries keep their boats and a three-mast schooner sits majestically upon brackish water. Taking this all in, I turned to mom to ask her a question to which she responded with a sonorous, guttural belch. Thank heaven no one was close enough to hear or see us, because the “oh no I’m going to pee in my pants” stance was quickly assumed. This is the mother I know and love, and I was glad to have her back.

That evening we stayed at Inverlochy Castle, a gorgeous hotel just north of Fort William built in the mid-nineteenth century as a private hunting palace and later turned into a hotel voted “Best Hotel in Europe” in 2006, complete with a Michelin-starred restaurant. The furnishings were exquisite, the grounds breath-taking, and the food ranked as one of the top three meals of my life. We ate breast of pigeon followed by goat-cheese encrusted lamb in port reduction, and enjoyed an entire meal where both of us managed to behave and keep ourselves clean. Our bedroom was spectacular, with a bathroom nearly doubling the size of the suite. It wasn’t until I retired for the evening and went to brush my teeth that the now-familiar scene took me by surprise. For some reason, Donna managed to pack lighter than I did this trip, and the question of “how” had been plaguing me since we left. Behind me in the mirror, however, I saw something hanging from the spigot in the shower. I said to myself, “A pillow case?” “A top sail?” No! It’s my mother’s underwear! Apparently to save room, she packed a limited number of under-things and has been rinsing and hanging them to dry at night, a fact I wasn’t quite prepared for when I went to pull them out of the shower thinking that a maid had left a large rag by mistake. Nothing will remind you faster that despite one’s idyllic surroundings, in a palace no less, that we are not in fact idyllic people, but only the Lefeves, traveling together. So far, so good: it's day three, we’re both still alive, and we’ve managed to have a lot of fun since we’ve been here. Part 2 is coming soon!



Signing out from Scotland,

Ann