The Keys to my Diary ~ Fern

Sunday, May 31

It's been over a week, and I haven't seen him again. The logical side of me knew that I probably wouldn't, but deep down, I had a secret hope that I would run into him somewhere. In my daydream scenario of our reunion, I am a lot smoother than I was in our actual encounter. I've been spending extra time getting ready for work each day, and I have even been volunteering to work the stand in hopes that he might return. No luck, though. It's like he was a figment of my imagination.

The black card sighting made for a great story, though. The gang was all appropriately impressed that I saw one in person and actually touched it. They all asked what it looked and felt like, so I described every detail. I was the only one of our group who had encountered one in real life. It was just like I had seen the elusive Big Foot, and I enjoyed the notoriety of it. I purposely omitted from the story my fiasco of a meeting with the card's owner and the subsequent dropping of the water bottle. I already felt completely humiliated about that, so I didn't want to add any fuel to the fire.

OMG. My mother called just now. She's on her way down here for a visit. She is at a hair stylists' convention in Miami, and, according to her, it's "full of deadbeats that wouldn't know a hot curling iron if they sat on one." Since her convention is a bust, she has decided to make the drive down to see me.

I am annoyed on so many levels. First of all, I had no idea that she was coming to South Florida. Even if she thought she would be spending all of her time at the convention, she could have mentioned that she would be here. I would have gladly driven up to Miami to take her to dinner. (By the way, I still feel a secret thrill every time I refer to going 'up' to Miami. People who live in the Keys are some of the few individuals in the U.S. who get to travel north to reach Miami.)

How does a woman travel 1,000 miles to stay within an hour of her only daughter without contacting said daughter? If the hairdressers' convention had been fun, I'm positive that I wouldn't have heard from her. Then she just calls and announces that she's on her way down. She assumes that I have nothing going on or that I'll drop everything just because she pops in. In actuality, I don't have much going on, just dinner with the gang, but it's incredibly annoying that she assumed that I would be available for her impromptu visit.

I'm sitting here looking around my apartment that I love so much, and I know that she'll find fault in it. It's small and rather bare, but it's mine, and I don't want her to make me feel like it's in any way inferior. Generally, she has a knack for doing that.

I'm going to tuck away my copy of The Secret and this journal, then do a little cleaning and sprucing up before she gets here. After all, she is my only mother, so I might as well try to make the best of this visit. At least she decided on driving down to visit me, rather than spending the night partying on South Beach, which is more what I would have expected from her. The least I can do is try to make sure we enjoy our quality time together.

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