The Passport Catastrophe

My mother, the world's most organized human, planned this trip for a year. She arranged everything, including a small fleet of private buses in various cities to allow our entire family to see what we wanted when we wanted to see it without having to rely on excursions planned by the cruise line.

Every few days she'd ask for my input and provide updates; usually I'd zone out, secure in the knowledge that the world's most organized human takes care of everything.

Except my passport.

Three days before the trip I pulled out mine and the kids' so I could fill out online preregistration forms for the ship. I could do this easily because I'm so organized (uh huh) that I have a safe in my basement so I don't have to rely on a bank safe deposit box. Two months earlier I'd checked their passport expiration dates because kids' passports don't last as long as adults'; I hadn't bothered to check my own, however, because that would have been just too . . . sensible.

I'll give you three guesses.

Yup. Expired.

Would it be trite to say my life flashed before my eyes? I visualized my mother melting down because I'd have to skip the trip she'd labored over for a full year, and who could blame her? I'm sure I must have done dumber things in my life, but so far I haven't been able to recall any.

I saved her a lot of trouble because I immediately began beating myself up much more effectively than anyone else ever could.

So. Tune in next time for part two of "How Scatterbrained Are You?"

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WHERE HAVE I BEEN??!!

Has anyone missed me? Has anyone even noticed I've been gone? Anyone out there? Come on -- I can hear you breathing.

So did I ever mention that when my mother has a big birthday she likes to throw a big wingding party, and when my father has a big birthday he likes to take the whole family on a trip? So this year was my dad's turn and my mom spent an entire year planning a Mediterranean cruise for ten people, ranging all the way down to Cleopatra-Queen-of-the-Nile, who's seven. We flew into Rome, where we spent a couple days acclimating and touring, and then we boarded a ship for a ten-day cruise. We stopped in Monte Carlo (lovely!); Barcelona (extraordinary and surprising); Malta (a not-well-known gem); Tunisia ("Whoa! American lady! Special price just today, just for you!"); Naples (enough already with the ruins, but great pizza); and finally back to Rome and then home from Rome.

Let me tell you, there is nothing like touring European cities with kids you love and showing them all sorts of things and experiences and places they'd never dream up in their own sheltered suburban minds. Five Jewish kids aged 17 to 7 were enthralled (even the grumpy ones) by a tour of the Vatican arranged by a grandmother who had the presence of mind to call a Catholic friend to set up entry through the exit doors so as to avoid standing in the four-hour-long admission queue.

More to come, including the shocking saga of the supposed grownup who remembered to check her kids' passports but neglected to look at her own and thus learned only three days before departure that her passport was expired and had to be replaced posthaste.

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