21 years ago today ...

Twenty-one years ago today, my grandpa died. He was 26 days away from his 71st birthday and 17 days away from meeting me.

From what I remember my dad telling me, my grandpa went to work that day. He came home and started feeling chest pains, and he was rushed to the hospital. My parents lived about an hour away at the time. It was an awful night - bitterly cold and snowing. My dad was going to go to the hospital right then, that night, but my grandma told him not to - that my grandpa was going to be okay and that, besides, it was too dangerous. He should come tomorrow instead, she urged. The next morning, my parents got the phone call that he had died.

I don't really know that much about him. In fact, I'm not even really sure what he did for a living. I do know that my dad greatly resembles him, from the pictures I've seen of my grandpa when he was in his 40s. I wish I had known him. When I was growing up, every year that January 31 rolled around, my dad would say, 'You know, my dad died today.' Or on his birthday, February 26, he would remind us that it was our grandpa's birthday. When I was little, I always remember getting so sad. I've always had a great memory for dates and would always remind him of so-and-so's birthday or so-and-so's anniversary. I wonder if he thinks that I just never remembered about his dad. I always did, usually weeks in advance. I would just hope that somehow he would forget the day, and then he wouldn't be so sad - but of course he never did.

I cannot imagine losing my parents. My mom's parents are still alive, but my dad's are both dead. My grandma died when I was eight. I remember that my mom picked me up early from school that day, and I heard her tell my teacher that I might be gone for a few days. As I packed up my bookbag and said goodbye to my friends, I remember being so excited because I thought we were going on vacation. I remember that she loaded Scott and me into the car, and as the buses pulled in to pick up the other kids from school, she told us that our grandma had died and we all cried.

I don't have a lot of memories of her either. I remember that she had a gum drawer that Scott and I used to visit every time we came to see her. She loved cooking and would always fix us pot roast and broccoli with cheese sauce. My mom told me that she would invite the homeless in for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. I remember one sunny day when I was around six, my grandma and her boyfriend Charlie took us for a car ride in the park. I remember looking out the window and seeing swans. My last memory of my grandma is visiting her in the hospital. It was just my dad and me and my aunt Marilyn. I remember saying goodbye, and as my dad took my hand and we walked out of the door, I heard my aunt Marilyn said, "Isn't she just the sweetest thing?" and my grandma said, "Yes, yes she is..."

My grandma was in the hospital on her last day, and she had been having trouble breathing. It was time to put in a breathing tube, and my dad knew she didn't want that. The doctors asked if she should be taken off life support, and my dad said yes. He held her hand as he watched his mother die. My dad had always been his mother's favorite, and he adored her just as much. When he came home from the hospital that night, he came in through the back door of our old house. I was sitting at the kitchen table and I turned around and said, "Daddy...?" And he raced past us upstairs, sobbing. I started sobbing, too, and I was so scared. I had never seen my dad cry.

After my grandma died, her house was lifted off its threshold and moved out to the country where one of my cousins lives. They razed the land and built an ATM and a circle drive in its place. I used to drive past it all of the time when I drove to Iowa to visit Leah. I couldn't pass it without getting a huge knot in my stomach. I can't imagine how it feels for my dad to look at his parents' house and see a car lined up where his bedroom used to be, with its patron waiting to grab money out of the teller machine.

Every night before bed, my dad would read a book to me. One of the books he used to read was called "I'll Love You Forever." It's the story of a little boy whose mom always used to say that to him. His mom would sneak into his room when he was asleep as a teenager, brush the hair of his eyes and whisper those words to him. When he moved out, she would drive to his house some nights to kiss him goodnight. But when she started getting older, her son would do the same for her. Finally the mother dies, and her son starts the cycle of saying, "I'll love you forever" to his new daughter. Basically, it's the saddest, sweetest book in the history of the world. Every time my dad would read me the book, he would begin to cry. I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't want my dad to be sad, so one day, I hid the book under a pile of quilts in my closet. He never mentioned the book again, and neither did I. I found the book when I was packing up my things to move when I was 14.

I love my dad more than anything in the world. If anything ever happens to him, I will die.

Weekend with the brother

I just finished watching the 2007 Miss America Pageant. I knew I was back in the US and no longer on UK soil when I saw the startingly high number of future skin cancer patients on stage. If there's one thing I learned in the UK, it's that beautiful skin is important. Embrace your paleness. The Brits think we're nuts for our tanning obsession, and we are. Also, I swear some of the accents used in the interview portion of the competition were fake. Do they truly believe that they will earn "street cred" with the judges by sounding like a migrant farmer in Dust Bowl, Oklahoma?

As I mentioned previously, my brother, Scott, was going to come to visit this weekend. It wasn't actually confirmed to me that he was coming until about 6 p.m. when my mom called to tell me. And oh, by the way, he's bring his friend, Danny. That's fine and all, but seeing as I live in someone else's house, it would be nice to know these things ahead of time so I could let her know. Communication has never been his strong point. This was evidenced several hours later when I heard a banging on the door. It wasn't a knock; it was more like a large Doberman Pinscher slamming into the door at twenty second intervals. I knew Scott was somewhat close because he had called me three times asking for directions, which either shows how bad I am at giving them or how bad he is at taking them. Either way, he never called to let me know he had arrived. Which wouldn't be that big of a deal, except that when I opened the door, he and Danny were standing there, holding a massive couch between them.

I had asked my dad if Scott could bring me a couch for my room since I had the extra space, but I didn't realize that the first thing he would do when he arrived at my house at 10:30 p.m. - in the pitch black of night - would be to lug that sucker up the stairs. He kind of grunted and told me to get out of the way, and then he and Danny began the unsightly task of carrying my maeve-colored couch up the steps. They hit the light hanging from the ceiling over the stairs coming up and knocked off all of the couch's legs in the process. I had a lot of fun watching the boys attempt to angle the couch through my doorway, cringing with each subsequent bang, scratch and thud as the couch bounced into the door and wall, cringing even more as I looked into the face of my roommate and house owner. Movers these days! No respect, I tell you.

The next night, Scott and Danny were gone, deciding they would prefer the company of the frat boys at The Farmhouse over mine. I was home with Katie, and, in passing, she asked me which one was my brother. "I noticed the boy in front (in carrying the couch up the stairs) seemed to be the one in charge, but..." She trailed off, explanation unneeded. My brother is 6 foot 3, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes, and he looks Italian. I'm blonde with blue eyes. It only bothers me when it comes up in possible incestuous circumstances, like when we're taking a family picture and the photographer asks if my brother and I are "together". SICK, NO.

I lied in my earlier post when I said that my facial condition was not contagious. It's actually hereditary, so maybe that doesn't count as contagious, but for comedic purposes, we'll pretend it does. Scott recently was prescribed a daily Minocycline pill, medicine that I solely take for laughs and giggles, too. He took his first pill on Thursday night and woke up the next morning with a swollen body that was covered in hives. It didn't stop him from partying at Mizzou, though. He skipped school, got a cortisone shot, took some Benedryl, and was on his way (DRIVING, no less!). My mom made sure to warn him before he left that if he felt his throat starting to tighten up, he "had fifteen minutes, tops. GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM." I'm lucky he didn't die in our living room.

Besides the couch, I also asked my mom and dad to pack me a few essentials. I really did not expect to be gone for over a month, so I was in dire need of more material possessions to hoard. These items included, but were not limited to, (1) hideously ugly couch now without legs; a pair of Ugg-looking boots with fake fur running up the side - hideously cute (or cutely hideous?) - but necessary in Missouri's tundra; 10 hangers (like I'm really going to spend $2.99 to buy more at Target!); three long-handled teaspoons (I'm particular about my spoons, okay? They make me enjoy my cereal more.); three pairs of underwear, including one thong (thanks for getting those together for me, Dad); my favorite black Victoria Secret bra (my dad had to ask if the tag would SAY it was VS; I assured him it would. It made his job a little easier as he sorted through the laundry basket filled with six girls' worth of underwear); and a DVD player. The DVD player is ironic because I don't have a TV - nor do I watch it, btw. We have a TV downstairs, but for some reason Katie doesn't think it will work. Anyway, in the DVD player is the movie my parents rented the other night. They had forgotten to take it out before sending the DVD player on its merry way with Scott. I told Scott that he was NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE without saying goodbye, mostly because I knew he would forget the stinking DVD. I arrived home from church on Sunday morning to find my brother, and all of his belongings save one (which I'll get into later), gone. I called him and yelled. He said that he was a full 20 minutes away and that we could 'just buy another DVD'. Sweet, Scott. Good idea.

I didn't have to miss my brother for too long, however, because Katie found a pair of his drawers behind the living room curtains. He claimed later that Danny had hidden them there 'as a good get'. Boys.

WHERE ARE YOUR COMMAS, YOUNG LADY?!

From my professor --
Sorry about your experience in the newsroom, though better you discover this here rather than in your first job. Don’t suppose it would help any to say that a different editor, a different paper may produce a different experience.

Hope you find some outlet for your writing in your career.

Keep an eye on your punctuation. Noticed two or three missing commas in compound or cmp/complex sentences.

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He is so helpful, that man.

Moving on - I can't believe I didn't think of this sooner. I received an email the other day from a very frantic boy in my editing class. He works the Sunday night shift on the sports desk and this interferred with - OHMYLORD - the Super Bowl. I emailed him back, quite quickly, and said that even though I had been counting down the days until the big event (wait, that's football right?), I thought I might be able to help him out. In conclusion, I am now working the night of the Super Bowl (I'll probably see more of it on the TV in the newsroom than I would at home since I don't watch television), and the very grateful boy is taking my birthday shift. I GET TO GO HOME!! Yippee.

The snow and ice are still with us here in the frigid wasteland that is Missouri. It gets warm during the day so the snow and ice start to melt, but the temperatures drop at night, refreezing the precipitation on the ground. Our house sits at the bottom of a hill, and a row of four parking spots sits next to the house. To get to my car, I either need to cut through the "grass" or ascend the hill via the road. The grass is covered in five inches of ice, so that's not too conducive to walking. I take the hill. I avoid the blatant ice, but a thin layer of glassy pavement always eludes me. I giggle the entire trek up to my car and try not to slip and crack my ribcage. Going down isn't as dangerous, I decided, because I would rather fall on my butt than on my face.

I went to the dermatologist after I got back from Europe. She took a long look at my face and said, "Hmmmm." She then proceeded to ask me some totally legitimate questions, like, 'Do you regularly wash your face with dirt and oil?" and "Are you sure you're not a pubescent 13-year-old boy in disguise?" She diagnosed me with some exotic disease called 'Your Face Hates You', which she assured me wasn't contagious. Right now I'm using some really innovative topical creams, the goal of which being to peel off the top five layers of skin on my face and start over. I'm at a good place in my life right now, really.

In other news, I just tilted my head up to take a drink of water and missed my mouth, dousing my face, tank top and pajama pants with a torrent of water. I'm so graceful.

I bought a study guide at the bookstore today called "Word Smart for the GRE". Katie's been freaking out about it for the past two weeks, so I figured it was high time I started stressing, too. Or at least pretending to stress. It has a bunch of really random, unpronouncable words that are likely candidates for the vocab portion of the test. I love me some big words, so this book is going to become my new best friend. I'll try to throw some GRE words into future blog posts.

My brother is coming to visit this weekend! I should clarify, however, that he isn't necessarily coming to see me; he's just using me for my residence. I loved how before it was always, "Why did you choose THERE?" Now that his best friend Pat goes here, Scott has conceded that it's "kind of cool" and has given Mizzou his stamp of coolness approval. This is my fifth semester in Columbia, so it's nice to see that he's come around before I have. Just kidding. Maybe I can somehow squeeze some bonding time out of this weekend.

Professional aspirations

This paper was assigned to me by my Journalism and Democracy professor. He wanted to know who we are and where we plan to go with our careers. This copy has taken quite the beating. It has been edited and toned down quite a bit. I thought maybe it would be inappropriate to introduce myself to the professor as the girl who prayed every night for either a tornado (for the newsroom) or a terminal illness (for myself). I was also forced to delete flippant comments about how I didn't suffer through college just so I could compare the quality of mascara wands (thanks for that, Ryan). I have sent away the final copy to my professor (so if there are any glaring mistakes, I don't want to hear about them), and I now post my 'professional aspirations' here for your reading pleasure and curiosity. Comments are most welcome.

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I always knew I wanted to be a writer.

I learned to read when I was four, and from then on, one would be hard-pressed to find me without my nose in a book. I started writing stories when I was eight, mimicking the style of my favorite author at the time. When I reached high school, I signed up for journalism classes as soon as I was allowed. I was the only senior who had taken the maximum three years of journalism by the time graduation rolled around.

I just figured I would end up in journalism; everyone expected it of me and I did not really question it. I loved expressing myself through writing, but my time on the high school paper showed me that I did not enjoy interviewing or reporting. I thought maybe it was something that maturity could fix since I had always been kind of shy.

I applied to one school – the University of Missouri – and was accepted. I entered the news-editorial sequence in my fourth semester of college and began my obligatory stint as a reporter for the Missourian.

I hated most of my time at the Missourian. My editor scared the life out of me, and I was constantly nerve-wracked. I worried that I wouldn’t complete the requisite number of stories, that I would make a mistake in one of my articles, and that my editor would snap on me. I hated having to bother people because I needed a source for my article. As much as I tried to make the best of the experience, I dreaded waking up every morning because I knew I would eventually find myself back in the newsroom.

I felt like I was going to fail because I knew how badly I wanted to quit and get out. That realization helped me work harder because failure was not an option for me. I came into the newsroom every single weekday, save one, for the entire semester. I ended up with an A-minus in the course; in hindsight, however, the constant stress and anxiety were not worth it to me.

I spent the summer trying to pull myself together. In the fall, I headed to the United Kingdom for the Missouri-London Program. I was to complete a journalism internship and I was terrified my experience would be akin to my time at the Missourian. It wasn’t. I worked as a writer, editor and secretary for a jewelry trade magazine and regained much of the interest in journalism that I thought I had lost. My colleagues and editor were constant confidence-boosters and such positive role models for me. I do not know if I could have forced myself to come back to this school without that experience and their guidance.

I have since returned to Columbia this semester at a crossroads. I have two semesters left and I don’t know what to do with myself after graduation. In my eyes, newspaper reporting is out of the question. I cannot handle the pressure and the constant time restraints because I feel like they undermine the quality of my work. I loved working at a fashion magazine, but I worry that the industry would make me feel like a sell-out. I want – and need – a bigger sense of overall accomplishment than I fear fashion journalism has to offer.

Before staring a career, however, I want to attend graduate school and study international relations. I’m also interested in politics and am considering law school. Afterwards, I would love to return to England to work as an ambassador for the United States, eventually seeking a Cabinet position or other advisory role to the president. To get my writing fix, I figure I can always do freelance or write novels.

Although I came into the School of Journalism with the most sincere intention of becoming a journalist, I suspect I will leave on a different path, with the realization that the traditional journalism career is not for me.

Chicken pox, snow and faulty tape

Knowing that I can't go home - but that I'm SO CLOSE - makes me want to that much more.

Granted, I did miss home while in London - that would be the first day. But after that, I was pretty much set and content. Whenever I even thought about home, I would unlock the balcony door and step outside, take a deep breath of polluted London air, and I'd be fine. Or I'd engage in retail therapy on High Street Kensington or lay down prostrate in the cereal aisle at Sainsbury's. Obviously I'm going to need a new strategy for dealing with Columbia.

It's not that I'm homesick; it's just that I'm bored. I am currently laying on the floor in my room, a pillow propped between me and the wall, my knees bent with my computer and my little sisters' Bratz Dollz blanket on my lap. I've alternated between this and my loft all day. The only problem with the loft is that I tend to fall asleep up there. However, I'm finding myself increasingly immobile here on the floor and my neck is starting to ache.

I planned my escape route all week. The original plan was to go home on Friday. I had made plans to hang out with Maddie on Friday night, but then I had the brilliant idea that I could take her home with me. My dreams were sufficiently shattered when my sister Amy informed me that my brother Kevin had come down with the chicken pox. I was pretty sure the chicken pox were in the same category as measles and mumps and dysentary - diseases you would only expect to come across while playing the Oregon Trail - but apparently I was mistaken. It wouldn't hurt me to go home and be exposed to it - I've already had them, and besides, time away from school due to illness? Okay. But I couldn't infect the star of the Missouri women's golf team with my brother's super contagious red spots, so chuck that idea. No going home Friday night. We went to dinner and saw Dreamgirls at the cinema.

My second idea was to drive home after my copy desk shift. Granted, the shift started at two and lasted eight hours and was filled with coma-inducing nitpickery. But maybe, just maybe, I reasoned, the anticipation of going home and escaping the copy desk would work its magic like three Red Bulls and a 180-volt electric shock. By the end of the night, however, I was shattered. But the real nail in the coffin was the fact that I could hardly find my car when I walked outside because it was buried under a foot of snow. Gah, I hate Missouri. Big fluffy flakes were falling as I drove home with my windows rolled down so that I could check my blind spots. I felt like I was cruising the streets of Columbia in an igloo.

So here I sit, two plausible plans foiled. A day filled with church and cereal, Super Wal-Mart and The Brother's Karamazov. I can't let the hope die, so I keep thinking to myself - "maybe tomorrow..." My poli sci class is canceled so I get done by noon. Three hours in the car puts me home at 3 p.m., so I would have 16 full hours home before I would need to drive back for my 9:30 a.m. class. RAWR! I just want my stuff. I told my family that I wouldn't be home until my birthday, but inwardly I was thinking that it would probably be just a couple of weeks. Now forget my birthday - I'll be lucky to be home for spring break.

I have three pairs of shoes here to my name. A pair of multi-striped flip flops. A pair of metallic silver pumps with a 3-inch heel. Both rendered completely useless by a few layers of snow and mush and ice, leaving me with my super stylish used-to-be-white Nike tennis shoes which I am now forced to wear with everything. Not to mention that I have absolutely zero room decorations - although God knows I've tried, but I can't get the tape to cooperate with me. I bought mirror tape today - you know, the kind you'd use to hang mirrors. I thought that would work perfectly for a bulletin board. Up went four strips of tape and up went the bulletin board. Fifteen minutes later, down came the bulletin board but the tape still stayed on the wall. I added two more strips of tape, a piece on each side, and up went the bulletin board again. Right on schedule, fifteen minutes later, it came crashing down and almost broke two of my toes. The tape, irritatingly enough, was still intact. To break up the monotany of the sleeping in loft/sprawling on floor routine, I'll lean up against the wall and scrape at the bits of tape that still furiously cling to the paint job.

And when that gets tiresome, I'll pull myself off the floor and take a bathroom break for fun, or blow out and promptly relight the abused candle that sits on my desk.

Eurotrip with Mom - Roma (reallyfast!) and more

I've burnt myself out blogging about the Eurotrip. All you need to know about Rome is that we went to lots of churches, scarfed down lots of gelato, and gorged ourselves on lots of Chinese food (don't ask). It was nice albeit a little trashy - that's the Italians for you, though. ;)

We freaking got all of our luggage lost, though. Air India did it again and delayed our flight by nine hours in Frankfurt. I told my mom that we needed to DEMAND to be switched to American Airlines so we could get home on time. She, in turn, went psycho on the unfortunate Air India desk worker, giving him an anthology of her back pain, the story of Air India Round 1 when they tried to feed hot dogs to their faithful Indian vegetarian passengers, and a lecture on how Air India is to blame for all of the problems in the world. He bought it and handed us our shiny new American Airline tickets before my mother was halfway through her spiel.

I knew they would lose our luggage, though, just like I knew that our Air India flight would be delayed. I like being right, but I would have settled into being wrong in these two situations. Three of our four bags arrived home about a week after we did. THANK GOD, I HAVE MY MAKE-UP BACK. It's been 19 days now, and I'm still missing bag number four. It has, among other things, my favorite TopShop sweater, my favorite black pointy-toed shoes, and three fourths of all of my clothes. Reimbursement would be nice because I was pretty sick of almost all of those clothes anyway.

It's day three of back-to-school week. I'm sitting very contently at my desk in my new room, wearing an SHG t-shirt and blue pajama pants, one leg Indian style and the other one bent with my knee partially obstructing my view of the keyboard. My pearl-encrusted white candle is sitting next to my laptop and burning away quite contentedly. I am actually looking forward to this semester. Looking forward to being done with it, most of all, but I think it'll actually be okay! I'll be done with all of my required classes save one after this semester, and I'm home by two every day for a nap. The only bad part is that I have to work the copy desk for an eight-hour shift every week - and I was assigned Saturday from two until close. This means that I will never be able to go home for the weekend, and if I choose to get around that, I will have to leave after class on Friday, get home by 5 p.m. and leave the next morning by 10:30. My 21st birthday is on a Saturday, and I was informed today that it's also Mardi Gras in St. Louis. All I wanted for my birthday was to go home, but instead I think I'll get drunk (legally) and then head in to the newsroom for my shift. That'll show 'em! Plus, I bet I'll come up with some pretty zippy headlines.

I just found out that my little sister, Lexie, aged six, cut off all her hair to donate to Locks of Love! I am SO SO proud of her. Her hair is a gorgeous white blond that was previously waist-length and now it falls a little above her shoulders. I never thought she'd do it because, well, I don't think I could ever do it and because she said she'd never do it! I'm so impressed. She's looking at the top tier in heaven for that one.

Eurotrip with Mom - The Train

We left the hotel two hours before our train was due to depart because I've noticed that bad things tend to happen. We got to the train station, via a cab, over an hour and a half early, to find that the ceiling of the waiting area happened to be the dastardly cold winter night sky. I told you bad things happen!

I was starving by this time and the only available place to eat was a little sandwich vender. I ruffled through my mom's purse for some change and told her I was going to get a baguette. "I keep seeing that girl rubbing her nose and she's wiping her snot everywhere," my mom responded. "But you can get something if you want."

Needless to say, I ate animal crackers for dinner that night.

The whistle blew and it was time to board the train. Our ticket stub said that we were in car 87 and the numbers started at 95 and moved backwards. Perfect, or maybe not. (What seemed like) Two miles later, we found our car. I helped my mom load all of her bags onto the platform and she went in search of our cabin. Meanwhile, I helped myself lift a 10-lb carry-on, a 55-lb suitcase and a 70-lb suitcase onto the deck. I then had the curious task of dragging all three bags to the end of the car where our cabin was located. As (my) luck would have it, the hallway was just about as wide as the massive suitcase - but only if I angled it sideways. I had my carry-on over one shoulder and I propped the massive suitcase up on my right foot and dragged. Each pull, and subsequent straining of my back tendons and neck tissue, moved the suitcases three inches. The guy behind me sighed loudly. I glared at him. He looked like he could dropkick me.

I finally made it to the car. I sat down on a bench because the suitcases were making it hard to stand, stretched my back, and was like, "Gosh, Mom, the guy behind me was a total jerk." The total jerk stuck his head in the compartment. As luck would have it, he was roommate number one. Roommate number two was a black girl. Both were French, and neither spoke English.

The question of what to do with our bags came up. There were luggage racks near the ceiling, but I could barely drag my bags, let alone lift them. The asshole reached down and went to pick up the giant bag. "No, no," I said, motioning with my hands. "It's too heavy," I added, just for kicks, as he pulled it in the air and placed it cleanly on a rack. The total jerk was now renamed Luggage Boy, and he became a friend.

The best way to describe our compartment was to say it was like two stacks of three coffins piled one on top of the other. It started out as three seats on each side, but then you could pull down the beds and you would be sleeping army style (or graveyard style, as I liked to say). "Well," my mom began, trying to make conversation with the French people, "Maybe we'll be lucky and it will just be the FOUR of us!" She holds up four fingers. The French people, who know how to count but have no idea what my mother is saying, respond with, "No, no!" and they hold up six fingers. And my mom's like, "Oh right, I know this holds six people, but I was just saying that I really hope that only the FOUR of us are in here!" Another set of four fingers. The French people are shaking their heads wildly and brandishing their six fingers like weapons. I wanted to cover my ears and scream, but instead I just told my mom to stop talking. This was not headed toward a solution.

My mom decided it was time to go to sleep. We arranged our bunks, her across from me and Luggage Boy on top of me. Besides having little to no patience, Luggage Boy also had another interesting trait. He was shady and he smelled like fire. He kept jumping out of bed and running out of the compartment, only to come back smelling like he had lit himself on fire. Not cigarette smoke, mind you. I'm talking real orange shooting flames. It was better than his horrible body odor, inadequately masked by several shots of Axe.

At one point in the night, I heard this tremendous snoring coming from the opposite side of the compartment, otherwise known as three feet away. My mom is the world's loudest and most frequent snorer, and while this is unbelievably annoying, I also realize that I'm her daughter and I have to put up with these God-awful traits I'll probably come to inherit. But snoring that echoed off the train walls in a tiny compartment with two other people? I had to do something.

I reached my arm over and touched her ever-so-slightly. I would like to add here that there had been times on the trip where I would say something to her and she would respond five minutes later with, "Did you say something?" I wasn't betting on immediate results from my poking. However, as soon as I touched her, she jerked and almost jumped out of her pants. I almost screamed myself. My mom was wide awake and gripping her purse with claws of death. The snoring, however, continued on full blast. Whoops. Wrong person. My mom glared at me.

In the morning, my mom recounted another train horror story for me. She awoke in the middle of the night and had to go to the bathroom. She made her way down the hall and found that our car's bathroom was occupied. She went another car down, and theirs was occupied, too. Finally, two cars away, she found an open bathroom. After a few minutes, she emerged and sleepily headed back to the cabin. She got scared at this point, remembering that I was alone in the compartment with two other guys (another guy had joined in the middle of the night in addition to Luggage Boy). She hurried to the cabin door, shut it, and tried to crawl into bed. Someone was already in there. They stared at her and she stared at them, and then she left. She stood outside the door for a few moments and then went back inside. It was a man and he just stared at her. "Sir, I think you're in my bed," she said. He didn't answer. "I know this is my cabin..." She left again. She opened the door and peeked in and the guy was still staring. She was trying to figure out what to do when she heard the door shut and the lock bolt. He had locked her out. That's when she realized that she was in the wrong car. Whoops.

We survived the night. However, around 4 o'clock in the morning, Luggage Boy bolts out of bed, grabs his suitcase and said, "Bon voyage!" We had arrived in Florence and he was gone. "Crap," I whispered to my mom. "Luggage Boy is gone. We're screwed." She said she thought that was the funniest line of the entire trip. I think we were both delirious. All I knew is that my 70-lb suitcase was sitting on top of the luggage rack and there was no way I was getting it down.

Late the next morning, we were the only ones left in our compartment. We went to the dining car to get food and they only had hot chocolate left. Sick. When we arrived in Rome, two hours later than scheduled, a porter pulled my luggage down from the rack, no Luggage Boy needed.

Hello, Roma!

Eurotrip with Mom - Paris

We settled into our big comfy seats on the train, our luggage carefully stored and AWAY FROM US (I grew to hate my luggage as the trip progressed), with complimentary copies of The Times, The Daily Mail and Marie Clare (in French, but I'll take what I can get). We enjoyed a lunch of flounder in a leek and cheese sauce and a slice of double chocolate cheesecake. We had just entered the Chunnel and my mom announced she was getting up to go to the bathroom, and I was full and sleepy so I announced that I was taking a nap. She left, and I pulled my coat over my head and drifted off to sleep.

I awoke however many hours and minutes later, with the conductor announcing we had arrived in Paris. My mom's seat was empty. I watched as my fellow passengers filed off the train, one by one, until I was alone with the luggage attendant. She looked at me expectantly. I looked around expectantly. Give me a little credit in that I didn't start panicking right away. She was probably in the bathroom, I reasoned. Again? But this is my mom. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Enough with the bathroom business. It was obvious that she had been kidnapped by traffickers targeting... moms?

Suddenly she appeared through another compartment. I breathed a sigh of relief. "I was getting worried! Come on, we have to go." And my mom's like, "Where? We're not in Paris yet." And even though I KNEW we were in Paris, there's always that question of doubt. Like when someone tells you that Jude Law is behind you, giving you a 'come hither' look, and inwardly you KNOW that Jude Law is not behind you and certainly not giving you A Look, but you want to believe it so you look anyway. Kind of like that? I turned to the luggage attendant and was like, 'We're in Paris...?' And she's like, "Yes, we're in Paris" and I knooooow she wanted to roll her eyes and point to the empty train as obvious proof that we had arrived at our destination, but she had more self-control than me.

So I was in a bad mood now, trying not to be, but grumbling at my mom for aging me prematurely and RUNNING OFF LIKE THAT - and she was all, "My back hurt. I was standing up in the baggage cart behind us. I couldn't hear the announcement." And I wanted to shriek, "We were in FIRST CLASS and you stood in the BAGGAGE CART", but I resisted.

We dragged our two massive suitcases plus one carry-on apiece to the taxi dock, where some French schmuck tried to get us to ride in a limo to our hotel for NINETY-FIVE EUROS. We might be blonde and we might be Americans, but we're not (that) stupid. We made it to our hotel and took the world's smallest lift up to our room.

This is where it all gets fuzzy. Our time in Paris, I mean. I remember the next morning that we slept in until 1:30 and the maids had knocked on our door twice by that time. I remember a lot of churches - Notre Dame, San-Chappelle, St. Genevieve, St. Sulpice. I remember going to the Louvre, the Arc d'Triomphe, the Champs-Elysees. Like many kids remember their first date or their first time driving, I will remember my mother discovering Starbucks.

I didn't realize until then that maybe the Starbucks stop in London had been a mistake. She had never been to Starbucks before, but one of her friends had made her try a chai tea latte before. It's like crack. We ordered Starbucks at least twice a day. Every time my mom had to go to the bathroom (which is, frankly, every hour on the dot - she has no bladder control), she insisted we go to Starbucks because they had the only bathrooms she trusted to be clean. Some of the Starbucks had keypads on the outside of the door where you had to type in a code found on the bottom of your receipt. This necessitated another chai tea latte purchase. I told her that when people asked her how Paris' famous coffeeshops and pattisseries were, and she had to confess that STARBUCKS WAS GOOD!, I would be taking no responsibility. God knows I tried.

Speaking of God, I also told her one morning over breakfast in our hotel that I didn't believe in God anymore. I have since changed my position on this (I think). She took it better than I EVER thought my mom would take such a statement, probably because she didn't think I was serious. Maybe not the best conversation to have three days before Christmas, but hey, it came up.

It was freezing in Paris. On most days I wore a tanktop under a microfiber turtleneck under a coat and a pair of tights under my jeans. The wind went right through me, probably because it was about 20 degrees and gusting. My mother, of course, was perfectly content, even taking off her jacket at times to illustrate just how nice it was outside. On one of our first days there, she looked at me seriously and said, "Ashley, I think you must have anemia, because you can't possibly be THAT cold." And I was like, "It's winter, Mom!" And she's like, "I know, and I'm so glad. I could never come here in any other season because it would just be too warm." We compromised by buying me a hat.

Last stop of the journey TBC ... in Rome!

Eurotrip with Mom - London

My mom finally arrived, 28 hours later than scheduled, at nearly 2 p.m. on Dec. 19. I had staged a one person sit-in, as I was told that her plane was supposed to arrive at 8:45 that morning. Obviously one person isn't going to do much, but I made sure to go up to airport information roughly every 15 minutes to see where the hell they had taken my mom now. Did I mention that they had actually arrived over London, circled the city a couple of times, and then decided to take a nice lolly jump across the pond to Paris because it was "too foggy"? It's funny that EVERY OTHER AIRLINE managed to land their planes in London at the time, but Air India couldn't hack it. Besides, it's London - are you looking for palm trees and nude beaches? Come on.

I had scheduled us to take a ride in the London Eye at 1:30, which would have been perfect had my mom arrived on time - it would have been her second day in London and she would have been well rested. However, she was instead flying across the English Channel for her second time that day at the time of our London Eye Flight, so we missed that.

It was really nice to see her, although I think both of us would have been a lot more enthusiastic had the reunion occurred 28 hours earlier. She was tired and felt gross, so I loaded her on the tube and took her back with me to my flat. Katie was there and had taken the liberty of strewing all of her belongings across the whole of the flat - so much for my insistence that the place was clean now that the flatmates were gone.

My mom showered while I called my dad to let him know that she had arrived. My mom opened the door to the bathroom when she was finished and saw that I was on the phone and was like, "Oooh, let me talk to him!" So she comes over and sits down with the phone, with one of my red-pink-green-yellow-white-blue striped towel wrapped unsteadily around her body and my other red-pink-green-yellow-white-blue striped towel twisted in a turban on her head. Katie's trying to ignore the fact that my mother, whom she met 15 minutes ago, is half-naked in our living room, and I'm trying to ignore the entire situation.

She finally gets off the phone and gets ready slowly (family characteristic) and we're off. I had bought her an Oyster Card with 10 pounds of credit on it at the tube station; we discover, going through her travel packet, including the itinerary that I have not seen, that the travel agent prepaid on a three-day travel card for her, which is sitting in the envelope. Helpful, since my mom would be in London for less than 24 hours and she already had an Oyster Card. Rage.

My head was spinning as I tried to figure out how to show London to my mom in about eight hours. It was already 4:30 and dark. We went over to Westminster and discovered the Abbey was closed (of course). However, my mom hunted down Westminster Cathedral, a Catholic Church that I had never really bothered to find but was curious about, and - conveniently - we were just in time for 5:30 Mass, which was said by an American priest (how annoying).

After Mass, I took her to Chinatown in Soho. We feasted on cashew chicken and sweet-and-sour chicken with fried rice and Chinese tea. Then we went to the Leicester Square tube station to meet Dickon so we could all go to a pub. Neither Dickon nor I was very familiar with the area, so we just walked around for a bit before he said sheepishly, "It looks like I'm taking you in the direction of my work. It's like a magnet. Let's go somewhere else!" We ended up at Starbucks because we couldn't find the perfect pub - which turned out to be for the best because it was much quieter with no smoke.

My mom and Dickon settled down with tea and I with a vanilla latte, and we sat there and talked for a good hour and a half. It was SO FUN. Somehow we got on the subject of cats and inevitably the subject of his namesake came up. He's like, "I remember Ashley sending me a picture of Dickon the cat - and my favorite part was the little piece of paper in his mouth that said, 'Hello, my name is Dickon!'" Amy's work. So funny. I gave him his Christmas present - two boxes of Froot Loops and two boxes of Gushers fruit snacks, which he seemed pretty excited about.

My mom and I walked him to the tube station and we gave each other a hug and he gave me a card. It was so sad to leave!! My mom and I walked down Oxford Street and Regent Street, taking in all of the Christmas decorations, window displays and lights. It really hit me that this was the end, and I almost started crying. You might notice this as a theme throughout my blog. I get very sentimental at night, particularly when everything is so beautiful and so picturesque.

We walked by Buckingham Palace and bought apple tea in a market by Harrods, then took the night bus back to Earl's Court. Katie slept on the couch so my mom could have her bed, which was so nice. I was slightly panicked in the morning trying to get all of my stuff packed, all of the dishes cleaned, all of the rubbish thrown away, all of my suitcases sat on and closed - but my mom helped me and we did it. Katie, again being an angel, helped my mom and I drag our suitcases to Waterloo, where we were to catch the Eurostar at noon. We got there in plenty of time, and my mom set off in search of a tuna baguette and I settled into a chair, wanting to cry (again) but not finding the tears, secretly wanting someone - ANYONE (okay, preferably a handsome British male in his 20s) - to rush up to me and insist that I stay in London forever, and I would send my mother on her merry way in first class by herself to Paris, while I, indeed, would stay in London forever. So much for dreams.

The journey is TBC ... in Paris!