This time, on The Misadventures of Tiff and Biff:
We are just back from a short weekend trip to see grandchild #3, a darling wee 1-week-old baby girl who is very very good at snoozing (during the daytime anyhow).
She lives with her parents who live about 4 hours away, so naturally Biff and I drive to see them, because she cannot drive yet and it's a long walk to our house but she can't walk yet either.
It was a nice time with great weather, so those who were interested in the hotel pool had a vigorous splash about while the ladies stayed on land and chatted about things hither and yon. We went to dinner, ate some tortilla-related things, and bid adieu for the night, dangling the promise of s delish hotel breakfast in front of them to tantalize the group into visiting us in the morning.
Some of them came by. Baby and mama rousted themselves up and over for waffles and coffee (granddaughter ate formula from a bottle, as would be expected) while the gentlemen remained home abed, still charging their depleted batteries from the day before's shenanigans.
('Day before's looks odd. Is that correct?)
A plan was made to go up to Charlotte, NC, The Queen City, and visit a few of the things that the youngins had experienced a few months ago while they were waiting for the library to re-open so they could drive home. Yes, you read that right. They recommended a park down in the 1st Ward as a starting point, after which we were going to ride the Blue Line around for a bit to experience what Light Rail means to a city center, then get lunch before heading home.
So, the park was nice.
Eventually one of us needed coffee, so we went over to the City Market and bumbled around there for a bit, stopping for coffee (of course), ice cream, and smoothies. I can recommend the "I have 5 on that" from HipHop Smoothies if you like peanut butter and bananas. Grandson had the ice cream, granddaughter chugged down a large portion of the potion that is currently her only source of sustenance. We were then ready for the next leg of our journey: lunch.
The youngins decided to walk to the established eatery, while Biff and I opted to take the Blue Line a few blocks to save me from having to walk too-too much.
Fine.
We procured tickets while the first train pulled into and out of the station.
We then were struck with the notion that we really did not know which way we were supposed to go, because down is up and over is here in that city that is NOT built on a North-South grid so everything is angles and ridiculous for a newcomer. A compass was utilized at one point.
We switched over to the other side of the tracks, convinced that now this was the way to go instead of the first way. It's one way, or the other, to paraphrase The Pretenders, but NOT both, not on the Blue Line. One way per track.
The train pulled in. We were about to get on. The grandson, who should have been long gone by this point, comes running up behind us screaming "don't get on the train, Grampy" and his dad approached telling us they'd misconstrued the direction 'our' train was supposed to go and we need to switch back to the original track and go the way we thought we should go in the first place.
We switched tracks again.
We got on the train, expecting a trip of just a few blocks.
First stop, 9th street. Two blocks away.
Second stop, way way WAY past 9th street.
We had gone the wrong direction.
On a one-way train.
We got off, switched BACK to the train that went the way we were supposed to go in the first place, rode it ONE stop back to the 9th street station (by the nice park we were at earlier) and drove our car to where we were to meet the youngins for lunch.
Only that place was too crowded according to their recon, so they picked another place. All we had to do was park (ha!) and find out where the place was we were supposed to meet, which was not evident from Google maps at ALL, so needed mama and grandson to go out to the street corner and flag us down to take us to the Red Eye Diner right there in downtown Charlotte.
Look it up and tell me if you could find it from the street. No cheating with Google maps.
Yes, it was a lot of folderol, and it took some patience on my part to not demand we just skip lunch already and go home, but of course it was worth spending time with family, eating a meal in the best seat in the house (a comfy circular booth with bright red cushions!), and ogling a wee tadpole of a human from time to time.
Today, on this Labor Day, we will celebrate by purchasing a new microwave, because sometime over the last 3 days it decided to stop laboring for more than 3 seconds in a row which is no way to heat up your breakfast risotto.
And that's my story.
