Part 1: Friday
Part 2: Saturday
Part 3: Sunday

Everyone was awake by 7AM, but for reasons unclear we wouldn’t be leaving until 10:30, so I again invited Mom & Katrina to join me for breakfast at the Apple Blossom Cafe. Again they declined, so I had the same breakfast as Saturday, and it was splendid again. As usually I do, and as I had all weekend, I carried my small notebook with me, jotting memories and moments I wanted to eventually write about. It’s the notebook that’s open in front of me now, as I’m writing this.

Then I returned to the hotel room, where Katrina was sitting in the chair, and Mom was sitting on the bed reading her Bible. The other chair was broken and uncomfortable, so I sat next to Mom, and Katrina offered me a Pop-Tart from the hotel’s breakfast spread. I did not get my fine physique by turning down Pop-Tarts, so I reached to accept the kindness, and in doing so, put my notebook beside me on the bed.

Mom immediately snatched it, opened it, and said, “You wrote something new in your notebook yesterday. Let’s see.”

I snatched it back and shouted, “Don’t be so unfathomably rude,” and in that moment a pleasant weekend with Mom flushed itself away. Cripes, I was seething, but saying anything would’ve led to saying everything, an explosion so massive the Biebesheimer Highway might topple from the hillside. I didn’t want this argument in Straggle, in front of my sister, with my mother who’d misrepresent all of it as she retold it to everyone across the family tree, so after a few minutes of absolute silence, I began writing my response in the notebook.

Pretty sure nobody’d said anything while I’d been writing all that, or if they had I’d been so angry my ears had welded themselves shut. Having written it, I put the notebook down on the bed, and helped Katrina as she started packing bags and baggage and carrying stuff to the car. You’re going to read my notebook, Mom, so read that.

Dd she read it? I’d be shocked if she didn’t, but she said nothing about it, and on our long ride back across the mountains, she was mostly quiet.

♦ ♦ ♦

Because my legs had cramped in the back seat on the eastbound trip, Mom volunteered to take the back seat, so I sat up front with Katrina, which was great for leg space, but not so great for my car phobia.

All the traffic, the mountains, the cliffs, the lane changes and ordinary surprises of driving all happened right in front of me, much more vividly and harder to ignore than when I’d been in the back seat. Katrina is probably a good driver — to my knowledge she’s never been in an accident, though I wasn’t brave enough to ask that question — but she’s a lead-foot, and called her daughter and checked messages at 80 mph where the speed limit’s 65. There were no close calls, and the only wreck was me, gripping the safety strap and holding the dashboard.

For reasons we never figured out, the car’s GPS sent us home via a different route than we’d come. Instead of Interstate-90 and Snoqualmie Pass over the mountains, it sent us on US Highway 2 and Stevens Pass. I-90 is a freeway, but Highway 2 is one lane in each direction, has stop lights, there were long stretches where it was bumper-to-bumper and barely moving, and it comes out in Everett. That’s 30 north of Seattle, and 50 miles north of where Katrina and Mom live.

Rough estimate, the GPS added an hour and a half to the trip. Katrina got angry at the car’s GPS, and switched to the GPS on her phone, which gave sometimes very different instructions. But she’s had the car for only a few months, and couldn’t figure out how to make its GPS voice stop talking. Muting it only muted the radio, not the announcements to “Turn right in 1,000 feet,” etc.

Mom was mostly quiet the whole way, sleeping and occasionally singing songs. Even wearing her hearing aids, any attempted conversations were likely to be interrupted by bad advice from one or both of the GPS systems. To this, add the whining and barking of Barney the confused dog.

He’s not good on long car journeys, so Katrina had given him a doggy sedative before the mountain crossing, each way. Thanks to the GPS, though, our return trip took longer and longer, and the dog got more and more awake, and more and more confused. He started whining and then barking, which usually means he needs to poop or pee, so we stopped and let Barney out, but he neither pooped nor peed. We drove on, and the dog whined and barked again, and we stopped again, and he neither pooped nor peed again, and it felt like we’d never make it back to Seattle.

We did make it back, and without any arguments but not in great spirits. I’d enjoyed most of the weekend, but it ended on that series of sour notes.

My dear departed dad told me many times, after something’s gone wrong you should analyze it, and figure out how to avoid making that same mistake the next time. That’s what I’m trying to do, in writing all this.

While I might — might — be willing to attend another reunion if there’s another reunion, it’ll have to be on my terms. I’d cheerfully stay at that crappy hotel again, but it’ll have to be a room all my own, and Mom’s not coming in. I’ll take a Greyhound bus, instead of riding in terror in someone else’s car for four hours. And I never want to hear another GPS voice telling where to turn.

More philosophically, if there’s a lesson it’s this: I’ve always envied people who have normal families and get along with them, and I moved back to Seattle (at least in part) to chase that, but it’s never going to happen. I need to quit trying. Or if I keep trying, at least quit hoping for anything different than what always happens.

7/28/2025

itsdougholland.com
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