I spent yesterday tiring my MIL out like a child. She had a hair cut appointment at Bergdorf Goodman. Afterwards, I crossed town to pick her up and the we walked from E59th and 5th avenue to W14th street and 9th avenue.
One of my favorite diners was closed between lunch and dinner so I took her to Chipotle’s. We went shopping and I gave her a tour of the neighborhood. Then I took her on her first subway ride since the 70’s/80’s and the woman makes friends with a tourist from Alabama. When a gentlemen gave her his seat she went on and on about how New Yorkers were much nicer than she read.
Three days looking after my MIL has taught me she’s reckless. For a woman is super paranoid and neurotic, she seems to not follow her own advice. From the first day I saw her I kept pulling her out of traffic, away from the curb, pulling my arms down to push her back from crowds and carrying her items that she’d leave behind.
She was so scared that she’d be pick pocketed in Times Square, she pulled everything out to put in a pouch that she wanted to safety pin to her pants.
She put her cell phone in her carpet bag so that she didn’t have to carry it in a purse that could be snatched. However, when she needed to pull it out, she had to unpack most of her items on the floor of Penn Station.
I felt like a safety guard on patrol. The entire time she didn’t stop talking. You ever see the commercial where the dad is strapping in his daughter into the car and she doesn’t stop talking? He doesn’t know when to close the door because she doesn’t stop her story. That was me and my MIL. In the streets of Manhattan, if you saw a red head talking non-stop to an Asian woman using her arms and legs as toll barriers while carrying several bags, that was me and my MIL.
By the time I got her home, she was falling asleep on my love seat. By 8pm, she was ready to crash but she requested coffee. I think she wanted to stay up but by 9pm she resigned her fight and went to the bedroom and slept through the night.
Success!
All in all, I was happy to see her and was glad she got to take a break from her hubby.
I’ll see them both for Christmas.
I’ll end this with a funny story. Friday night, hubby woke up in the middle of the night, went to the bathroom and groggily shuffled into the bedroom. He sat on the bed and was about to lie down when his mother said, “You want to sleep in the bed?” “Huh? Oh. Oh! Oh God, no! Sorry. Night.”
