Pending arrival, but first a flashback

My dad arrives Tuesday for a 2 week visit to my new home in France...
There will be plenty of fun stuff to talk about after his visit (think white trash)...but first, I thought I'd flashback to my mom's visit a few months ago and let you read some of my thoughts on that...I wrote this after she left...

My mom's philosophy when traveling is that we must buy and eat everything in the first stop…and the second stop. By about the 80th stop she starts to wind down and pass up ice cream, postcards and souvenirs.

Here’s another example of “I’m not sure what kid mom thinks she raised” we’re walking with my aunt up to the Cap 3000 shopping mall. Mom makes some kind of comment about how her and I are used to shopping with cell phones – that we’d done it so much we got used to calling each other on our cell phones “I’m over here, where are you” “I found this, what did you find” What the hell is she talking about – never once have we done that while shopping – in fact I generally avoid shopping with my mom at all costs.

When it comes to shopping my mom resembles a tiny kitten, gray, fluffy, kitten. With those big kitten eyes that can’t really focus on anything but are looking at everything. And when she smells tuna (see…anything that is being sold) she becomes focused and cannot be distracted unless you pick up the kitty and move her past the tuna smell.

Is that tuna? Did someone say souvenir?

The kitten is singularly focused when it smells tuna – nothing else matters, nobody else matters. The two other kittens that happen to be with the gray kitten could be starving, exhausted, hot, thirsty, grumpy….but if that gray kitten smells her tuna there’s no stopping her…just let the kitten go, she’ll find you later.


My mom is a very generous person – well somewhat. Depends on the item. At the French Wal-Mart-on-Crack type store mom announces to me that she wants to do something really special for me – she wants to buy my something “really special” – a toaster. No where in the last week had either Kev or I mentioned or hinted that we wanted/needed a toaster. She didn’t even eat or attempt to eat toast at our house – never a “darn I’d like to have toast…but” Then she got really upset when I told her we don’t need one, that our microwave here actually has a toasting option on it…unlike the ones in the US…so there’s no need for another appliance. The kitten just got it’s tuna take from it.

So my journey with my mom ended. Two weeks total. 1 ½ at my house in the South of France. Three final days in Paris before they flew out of Roissy and back to Dallas. We visited:
Cannes – walked the pedestrian only shopping center, ate ice cream, and bought post cards and souvenirs.
Monaco – saw the aquarium, took the cute little tourist bus around the city, ate lunch/ice cream, and bought post cards and souvenirs.
San Remo, Italy – lost money at the casino slot machines, between the two of them they purchased 6 wallets and 8 purses, spaghetti at the Cambodian run Italian restaurant, ice cream in the car on the way back – special stop for post cards.
Nice – took the double decker tourist bus around the city, ate lunch down the pedestrian only street, ice cream through the park, bought postcards and souvenirs.
Drove the coast south to San Raphael, ate shrimp with faces, ice cream, and bought postcardsand souvenirs.
St Paul de Vence – my favorite “perched” village, ate lunch, bought souvenirs and postcards, ate ice cream.
Valbonne – twice, ate lunch, bought souvenirs and post cards, ate ice cream.
They dipped their toes in the Mediterranean Sea and sat at a little beach cabaña for ice cream
Three visits to the mall.

From Paris, I flew back to Nice (got home about the time they were boarding their plane for Dallas). As I walk in the door I find notes from my sweet husband (I love when he leaves me notes) – the one on the front door tells me to follow the notes for a big surprise. The notes inside tell me to go into the office for the big surprise. The notes in the office direct me to the bathroom where he’s hidden by big surprise. Notes in the bathroom tell me to turn around for my big surprise.

There on the wall hook, plane as day, in the guest/office bathroom are hanging a pair of mom’s panties – the big surprise. I was crying laughing thinking about Kevin finding his mother-in-law’s panties hanging in the bathroom.