The other side of the tracks

My mother left today. She was to catch a plane from London to Toronto, and then, a while later, from Toronto to Victoria. I went with her to the airport - in our rental car, then I had to find some way of getting home because the first return bus I'd have to take to come home is only Mon-Fri. I ended up walking by the fields of chirping crickets, the tall grass, stepping carefully over the criss-crossing train tracks on the highway, and listening to the dirt road grumbling and mumbling along the highway. I was singing all the while - mostly The Beatles' songs like, "If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be true, and help me understand?..." and The Little Mermaid's "Look at this stuff, isn't it neat? Wouldn't you think my collection's complete? Wouldn't you think I'm the girl... the girl who has everything?..."
It was a beautiful 1 hour walk to the bus stop. Just as I got there, I got a phone call from Mom, "My flight's been delayed." It would now be leaving to Toronto about an hour later than scheduled, but it wasn't to be a problem because her plane from Toronto to Victoria didn't leave until still another hour or more from when she would now arrive.
I got to the bus stop just in time. The bus pulled up just as I arrived - I love it when that happens! It's almost worth missing the bus a couple of times just for that spectacular moment of feeling like it's just your day and you don't have to wait for the bus. Anyhow, just before getting home - two busses later - I got another call from my mother. Her flight had been canceled. She said she had to go find her luggage so she couldn't talk for long, and she'd figure out what she was going to be do and call me back. She asked me to text Bere (my sister) so she'd know not to pick her up at the airport.
At first I was shocked and upset for her that her flight had been canceled, but then I felt a sly sense of selfish excitement creep in, and I felt and inward smile at the thought of having my Mommy with me for at least another short while longer.
I went back up to my apartment and started making some food, enough for two, in case Mommy would be coming back tired and hungry. I didn't make anything special, just salad and some stir-fry. Eventually I heard from Mommy. It turns out they had sent her on a different plane, and the reverse of before passed through me: I felt relief for her and glad that she'd get her whole Sunday to relax and recover from the discomfort of taking a plane all the way across the country, but at the same time, where before there'd been an inward smile at hearing she'd be coming back, now there was an inward sigh at knowing she wouldn't be.
We had laughed a lot yesterday because we were looking for a store that someone had mentioned to us. We were heading North on a highway-like road by fields and lots of land used for who-knows-what (it was actually quite nearby to where I was walking near the airport today), and the lady who'd described the location of this store to us said, "It's just past the railroad tracks." So we passed the railroad tracks and saw no stores... nothing... and a few minutes past the railroad tracks we decided to turn around and go back towards the railroad tracks. We saw someone filling a tank with gas and pulled over to ask him if he'd heard of the store. He said, "Oh! Yes, it's just before the railroad tracks," (which made sense because we were now heading in the opposite direction, South. Again, we headed towards the railroad tracks, eyes peeled, and nothing! We headed North again, nothing. Mom asked some person at a car garage about the store and came back not understanding well his reply. We stopped at a sketchy bar with greasy, old, scruffy men who eyed me up and down as I went in to ask the employees for help (Mom said it was my turn to ask)- of course the employees were two fit, voluptuous women with long black hair and false eyelashes, low-cut cotton tops and smiles the size of grapefruits. Unfortunately, they were less help than anyone. After 10 min. of them flipping through their iTouch phone, they gave me the address of a store with a similar name but with a downtown address -nowhere near where we were. Mommy actually ended up getting out of the car and coming into the bar to find me because I had been there so long (waiting for the women to figure out how to search the internet) that she thought some creepy man might've kidnapped me. As we were leaving the bar, we asked yet another couple about where this random store was and they, too, said "Just before the railroad tracks -- you can't miss it!" It suddenly occurred to us - perhaps simultaneously - that there may have been more than one set of railroad tracks along this road we'd been ironing with our car's tires for the past 30 min. At last we arrived to the store to find its doors closed. They'd closed at 4:30pm, even before our excursion to try and find them. To further our defeat, when we peered through the window, we saw nothing of interest.
And that is the story of the other side of the tracks!

Alas, no day with mom has been unproductive or unsuccessful. On the contrary. When she arrived I had a bare apartment with no furniture and no plates even to eat off of. Now that she has gone, I have just about everything I need to live except for a bed and a vacuum.

God bless Moms :)

~Selina