This edition of  LOLAnne Newz begins with me spending an inordinate amount of time planning fantasy vacations around the globe. Regularly scheduled blogging time! Work time! Sleep time! Dinner-prep-so-I-guess-you’re-eating-sandwiches-tonight time! No minute was sacred when it came to browsing google flights or VRBO.

So much time, in fact, that on Thursday night, as I tucked them into bed, my kids reminded me to pick them up early the following afternoon, DUE TO THE HALF DAY MARKING THE COMMENCEMENT OF SPRING BREAK. For which, I had nothing planned. *rimshot*

So I threw together a day trip to the east side of Pinnacles National Park.

Highly recommend! The videos are of Bear Gulch Cave, for which flashlights are required, and you get to scrabble around in the half-dark.

After, we continued north to the Bay Area, and spent the next day at Six Flags, Discovery Kingdom. Which is a weird little zoo/Seaworld-type aquarium/amusement park. The butterfly greenhouse was cool!

And they have a shark-exhibit similar to San Fransisco’s Aquarium of the Bay, where you walk through an underwater tube.

The rest seemed very throwback, with its dolphin and tiger shows that twanged with that uncomfortable sense you are witnessing something that will probably be illegal within your lifetime.

Also, almost Scooby-Doo Haunted Amusement Park level of shut down of rides.

Narrator’s voice: It did NOT open at 12:00

Please see my twitter feed circa April 17th for all my antagonistic calling out of the park.

Before our visit, I bought Season Passes, sight unseen, on the internet to save a buck! But only because they were cheaper than the day pass for Six Flags Magic Mountain. And Season Passes allow us access to any Six Flags. So we will go to Magic Mountain and recoup our losses.

#

My mother returned to her home from Little’s house the weekend before Spring Break began. She had been helping Little with the new baby/toddler balance, in which inevitably there is some child-on-child jealousy. Or at least tender bruises that can be coddled by the special one-on-one affections of grandparents arriving with hugs and presents. But now she was home, alone. So I invited her to come down to visit us in the latter part of the vacation, hung up the phone, and took up the business of fretting about what it would be like to see her, on her own, for the first time.

But it was not too bad. My fear was whatever pent up grief I must be holding back would unleash itself in sobbing the moment I saw her alone. Or that she would be fundamentally lesser in a way that would make me scared she might die too. Neither happened.

However, on the day of her arrival, she got a phone call from my adult male cousin. My mother, daughter and I were running errands (at the library, picking up a book for my kid) and Mom got up and left the building to talk. She was still talking when we checked out 20 minutes later. She talked as I drove to the grocery store, the awkward silence of not wanting to eavesdrop but also forced to sit in silence broken only by her side of the conversation. We left her in the car. She was still talking when my daughter and I returned with a cart full of groceries. All in all, an hour+ long phone call.

It made me inexplicably sad. My mother needs someone to need her in that dramatic way which forces her to drop everything and listen. She and I used to talk like that, before our fall out over The Exes. In another world, it might’ve been my time to pour my heart out to her while doing errands. It also made me a little jealous and weirded out, to see demonstrably that there was another waiting and needy grown ass person who’d thrown themselves into the void I’d left.

But then my mother got off the phone and in apologizing, detailed shockingly private tidbits of my cousin’s conversation. I remembered why I don’t confide in my mother anymore. I hate the idea that after I bare my soul and hang up, whoever’s within earshot of my mother might hear my personal business.

Which? The hypocrisy is not lost on me. In blogging, I too am blaring personal interactions to anyone who wants to come by and take a gander at them. I am my mother’ daughter, needy for validation, willing to be both over-personal and lacking in discretion. Even when I think I’m changing, I am still saming in ways I barely catch around the corners.

The next morning, I got up early and my mother got up early, and we sat on the couch with coffee. She asked my opinion about both memorial ideas (Where? When? All the surprising people who want to come, and how to house them!) and what to do with my father’s ashes.

As the conversation wandered, she brought up The Exes three times. Once, expressing hope one of them didn’t come to the funeral. The second time, she related an empathetic story about the other Ex, something to pull at the heartstrings, and which put me in the uncomfortable position of refusing to express soft noises of human warmth or acknowledgement which are normally  expected in such situations. The third time, she carefully reminded me that Ex, the one she was empathetic towards, will be at the memorial, and if we do a thing to scatter Dad’s ashes, that as well.

“I see you’re tearing up. What part got you?” she asked. It felt as though she purposefully belabored The Exes’ attendance in order to get my vulnerable feelings about it. Which? OF COURSE I HAVE VULNERABLE FEELINGS ABOUT IT. BUT. I spent twenty years of my life pleading to have minimal contact with The Exes, and that got me nothing but forced interaction with them, and the desperate false belief that if I could only explain the situation to my mother in a way she was able to understand, she’d take my side. Her tender, Tell me what’s wrong, sweetheart face was exactly the same old hook to get me to try and convince her The Exes were bad and I was good and to please not make me interact with them again.

I excused myself, went out to feed the cats, and had a good cry. When we came back, I changed the subject. Yay! For slight but worthy change!

I’m still pretty scared about going to the memorial service TBH, and have (probably wild and unfounded) fears The Exes will try to strike up a bond with my children, perhaps plead their case to them that I am a jerk and they are delightful family members who would shower my children with presents and love, should my children befriend them. And how will I be able to, in a socially acceptable way, stop that? Maybe it is not within my control, and I should not interfere? Maybe I will just bark like a rabid dog if The Exes get close to my children, and not worry about making a scene at my father’s funeral? Maybe I will hyperventilate a little and consider my options?