Addressing questions from trip home

 

I have been debating for the last month how to address some things. So, I am going to do my best to do it.

Why did you pick just a strange time to come home?

I didn’t find it strange. I wanted to come after Memorial Day, before the CWS started, and before the humidity was super unbearable. The reason for working around Memorial Day and the CWS was simple, I didn’t want to pay super high hotel rates.

I arrived on Tuesday and left on Saturday. Well, I chose the dates I did for a few reasons. I had to work around month-end close. Yes, I am a retired accountant, but I still have many friends who work in the field. So, I wanted to work around them. I left on Saturday because I wanted to be there on Friday to spend time with some people. More on that later.

 

Why didn’t you stop and spend time with me? Are you mad at me?

I am not mad at anyone. You must understand that I have lived there my entire life so far, so I know a lot of people. I had to make some hard decisions about who to see and who not to see.

If I didn’t see you, it doesn’t mean that you are not as important as someone else. It doesn’t mean that you don’t matter to me.

Who did I see?

I only actually spent time with 19 people.  So, let me break this down on who and why.

Tuesday night – Two professors from Doane University. I have known one since I did my undergraduate work. The other one was my advisor when I did my first master’s degree. The one was so excited that when she heard I was coming into town, she drove over an hour to Lincoln to see me. They have both been super supportive of me. The one retired recently and sent me a bunch of books to help me with my research.

Wednesday – I spent the day with my mom doing some things that we both enjoy in Omaha. I know I see my mom all the time, but she is elderly, and she is the only family I have left.

I also saw my friend and former hair stylist Carolyn who has been with me on my very windy journey.

Thursday – What a busy, but super fun day!  First stop, we had to see Kathleen and check out her new shop. It is lovely by the way. We got to meet Jilly (the dog) and she is beautiful. My mom used to do business with Kathleen in the 1990’s and later I took a pottery class with her.  Next stop, we visited Barb. She is a small business owner in Lincoln. When she worked at UNL she hired her mother and others to run her business. Since then, she has retired from UNL, and her mother has passed. When covid hit she almost lost her business. She was able to salvage it by reducing her hours and staff. She is a one lady show now. She was so shocked to see my mother, she said you are not supposed to be here when we walked in. While my mother hung out with her lifetime friends, I headed to Mahoney State Park to see some of my closest and dearest friends. We had a lot of fun and then we headed to Ashland to check out a tasting room. Thursday night I was supposed to meet a former work friend, but she forgot. I felt horrible that I couldn’t reschedule with her because my schedule was packed full. So, I got ice cream and left.

Friday – The first half of this day was fine; the rest well let’s just say it wasn’t my favorite part. I met Kate for coffee, she is the professor that I worked on for my final project when I did my first master’s. I created a class for domestic violence survivors. Afterwards, I picked up my mother from the hotel and hit some of the local stores. We had lunch at Runza. Oh, how I missed it because I knew it wasn’t the best for me and I was supposed to be having a great dinner, I didn’t want to overeat, so I ordered the kids meal. Mmm… if I had only known how that dinner was going to turn out.

I had planned to spend my Friday in southeast Nebraska, a little over an hour from Lincoln. Well, the first half of my adventure was okay.  First, we stopped by to visit with some family friends. They are two single elderly twins that live together. They went to a lot of trouble for our visit. One of them drove into Lincoln to get coffee because they know my mom likes coffee from The Mill. It was a super sweet gesture! They also got busy in the kitchen and made snacks.  They were yummy. When we left them, we headed off for the rest of the evening.

My dad used to work with a man who became a family friend about 40 years ago. Dad has since passed and we have stayed in contact, since we moved. In February, we told him we were coming back and gave him the dates. Originally, we had planned to leave on Friday, but due to his work schedule we decided to stay on Saturday.  We had planned to go on the boat tour in Brownville.  Well on Wednesday night, yes two days before Friday, my mom called him. He tells her that yeah we (him and his wife) don’t want to do this anymore, can you get your money back on the tickets. I don’t remember the time. I know it was dark. I was driving down O Street near 70^th Street when the call took place. I was on my way to the 2^nd Starbucks of the evening. I was attempting to find one of the Been There Series coffee mugs. Mom wanted a NE one. Afterward a few stops I found one at the Target on 48^th.

Back to the cancellation of the event. Mom agreed to meet them for dinner instead. Fortunately, we were able to get a refund for the tickets that we purchased.

Okay dinner. It was not very good. I wasn’t too surprised as Mom and I were chatting about it at the hotel that morning at breakfast. I man overheard us and told us he used to live in Nebraska City, and it wasn’t very good. Oh no, I thought. Well, hopefully this turns out better than this man thinks.

Mom said the spaghetti sauce was just plan tomato sauce poured over spaghetti with bland meatballs. My chicken dinner was a piece of chicken breast cut up over spaghetti. It was very bland.

The couple we were with enjoyed their dinner. Their company wasn’t the best as we could tell that they had been fighting. It was super uncomfortable. After an hour, they said they had to go because they had to let their dog out.

Mom was pissed, she moved the vacation around, so we could see them, they changed their mind about doing an event, and had us meet them at a horrible restaurant. We have not heard from them since we turned home.  Mom said she is always the one making the effort to communicate with them, so she is not calling him he can call her.

 

Saturday– We headed out of the hotel to stop at one last local shop. I couldn’t get the one item I came for.  I asked if they could ship it to me when it came in, and I was met with an unbelievable response. We will only ship it to you if you purchase a quantity of two. I was confused. I had just spent $88, and this lady is refusing to ship me a pair of socks. I didn’t argue with her. I sent Lori an email later because I had a question about something else. Anyway, about a week after we returned, I was talking with Lori on the phone and I told her what happened, she was shocked. I had already given up and ordered the socks directly from Foot Traffic and didn’t have to pay shipping.

After stopping at the boutique, we headed to meet some family friends for a meal. These people would never travel out here to see us because they don’t travel. When you have anxiety it’s difficult to get on a plane. We know this so we wanted to make time for these people. We had a nice visit.

When we were leaving the restaurant, I noticed mom had left the umbrella inside. So, I went back for it. Mom placed it by her feet, and I never saw that umbrella again because she forgot to pick it up when she got out of the rental car. Thanks to Amazon I was able to replace it. It is an umbrella with UV protection.

Due to bad weather in Denver, we were delayed in getting out of Omaha, which caused us to miss our connection in Denver.  It was late and we were tired, cranky, and frustrated. We met the sweetest lady in Denver who worked to get us on a different flight to get us home that night. Many others were in the same situation including Easton Corbin. He and his band were seated behind us. They were a nice bunch!

Hopefully this post clears everything up!