Sunny in Philly

While I won't say it's ALWAYS "sunny" here, so far it's been not so bad this time around. There's plenty not to like, but most of that hasn't been too noticeable. Getting here from Bushkill was rather unpleasant (had to drive back to Allentown -- and the traffic was unexpectedly terrible -- turn in my work-paid rental car and check-out a self-paid rental car that I can leave in Philly), but once I was here, things were much smoother.

Last time I was here, back in late 2004, things were in disarray with mom and her divorce, so we didn't do a lot of hanging around the house. In fact, it's been quite some time since coming home felt like home. But this time was much different. Mom's divorce has since been finalized and she has completely (and that is like the biggest possible understatement -- you'd simply have to see before and after pics, which I don't have) remodeled the house. And she has partially turned the house into a shrine to her children (something it hasn't been anything like in many years for former husband related reasons), which has been interesting as I haven't seen some of these pictures in YEARS. And, mom found a way to keep everything my sister and I made or gave her as kids, so that stuff was interesting to see. She still has my old Haro BMX bike, old karate trophies (crazily on display even), and ALL the knick-knacks she had when we were kids (that had long been in deep storage) were out in force. So this was strangely the homiest homecoming I've ever had in all my years of coming home. And, it's been strangely satisfying.

I had previously talked my sister into coming down from New York, and she arrived shortly after I did, making the old home feel all the more homey. We took mom to a nice dinner of her choice and we reminisced about old times and old haunts. Then we took her shopping.

We stocked her shelves with groceries, but we had fun doing it. I'm pretty sure this was the first time my sister and I have both been grocery shopping with mom since we were kids, so we were having a blast with it doing things like saying "mommy mommy, can we get fruit loops?" and asking to push the cart, etc. I'm pretty sure we embarrassed mom a couple times, but this time we meant it. And it was fun. Afterward we rented a movie and watched it huddled on the couch like when we were kids.

Today is errand day. As she doesn't drive and so has to only run light/close errands for herself typically, we're taking mom on every imaginable heavy-duty errand she can come up with. Chinatown, home depot for an 80-lb bag of concrete, might get her a new dryer, you name it.

And tonight? The Phillies are in town so there is no doubt where I'll be, and with old friends to boot. Mom doesn't want to do that one, but I'm trying to talk her into it so it will be like when we were kids and she'd take us to ballgames. If there's one thing I owe to my mom (aside from the obligatory things), it's baseball. Dad isn't the sports buff in the family, but mom is, and I owe my love for baseball to her, for taking us to games and making us watch games on TV back in the day.

Tomorrow I do not look forward to. Long lines at airports, going back to work. Sure wouldn't mind staying "home" a bit longer.