In the middle of the night Wednesday, Cherry woke up and informed me that she needed to "hoe up," which she then proceeded to do, fortunately not in the bed. And then she went back to sleep, only to wake up 3 hours later and inform me that she was hot and her head hurt. So I gave her Motrin and held her until her head stopped hurting and she could go back to sleep (on the couch). Naturally that meant that she wasn't going to be going to school on Thursday, which eliminated one of the issues with going to get Mom. Of course it introduced another one, namely, "what to do about Cherry." Option 1--take her with me--seemed out because not only would it expose everyone on the train to whatever she had, it would expose her to what everyone on the train had when her immune system was clearly already dealing with something. Option 2--make Blaise get Mom--didn't appeal to Blaise, who observed that he would definitely lose an entire morning's work. Option 3--leave Cherry with Blaise--didn't appeal to Blaise either (see the problem at option 2). Eventually option 3 won out on the grounds that he might possibly be able to get some email or something sent while caring for Cherry.
Then I had a brilliant idea. Blaise had to eat breakfast and take the kids to school anyway, so he wouldn't be able to start working before 9:15 or so no matter what. Since Mom's plane had landed by 8:00 (I checked the website), I could go to the airport then, and meet her early, and he would get more work done and she wouldn't have to spend as long sitting at the airport. It would all work out perfectly.
So I headed for the airport, arriving around 9:20, and headed for our agreed upon meeting spot--outside the customs area of Terminal 2A, which was exactly where we had met in October. Mom had said that she would find someplace to sit and knit in that area, and so I started looking for her as I approached. I didn't spot her on my first pass through the area, but that didn't particularly concern me. Perhaps the line at immigration had been long, or maybe she'd needed to find a bathroom when she got off the plane. Furthermore, there weren't all that many seats, so she might have needed to walk a ways to find one. Probably she just figured that she would walk back to the customs area around 10:15. I would just go further up and down the terminal and perhaps I'd even peek into the restaurants and cafés to see if I could spot her there. So I walked all the way from one end of terminal 2A to the opposite end of terminal 2C and back, peeking into all the seating areas and restaurants along the way. No luck.
By this time it was close to 10 and I was beginning to get a bit concerned. Well, perhaps her flight had come in at some other part of terminal 2. After all, things might still be messed up from the volcano, and they might have had to shuffle some planes around. No big deal, she was probably just waiting for me at terminal 2E or something like that. I would go to the information desk and confirm that the flight had landed where it was supposed to. So I waited my turn at the information desk, and asked them to confirm that her flight had indeed come in at terminal 2A, and was informed that it had in fact come in to terminal 1, which is a completely different building on the opposite end of the airport complex. (Even the RER has two stops.) The best way to get there? Take the airport shuttle train over.
Through terminals 2A and 2C. Through the train station. Out the doors and down the stairs to the shuttle. Board and wait while the train passes through a parking lot, Terminal 3, another parking lot, and at last, Terminal 1. By now I've learned my lesson. There are multiple halls to terminal 1 and I straight to the nearest information desk to figure out which one I need. The nearest elevator will take me to where I need to be, so I go up and look around. The area is small, and it fairly quickly becomes clear that Mom. is. not. there. Nor is she in the bathroom, or the one coffee shop. Perhaps she's still inside the baggage claim (2.5 hours after she landed? Not likely.). Back over to information where I confirm once more that this is where her flight landed, and tell the woman working at the desk that I can't find my Mom, who was supposed to wait right there until I came to get her. Evidently they don't page people, but they make an exception. I wait, anxiously for several minutes. Nothing.
What to do? Perhaps she's contacted Blaise? In any case, he's probably wondering what on earth has happened to me. I phone, tell him that I'm still at the airport and that Mom is missing and that they switched terminals and that. . .. He says he'll confirm the terminal for me, and has me talk to Cherry. My time runs out, and I'm out of change. I rush to the newsstand and buy the cheapest thing they have in order to get more. I call back. Her flight did in fact land at terminal 1, baggage claim 4, which I can see quite nicely through the window. Perhaps she's downstairs by the check in desks? I go back down the elevator and look around. No.
And then I hear, very faintly, an announcement, with my name, telling me to do something, though I can't figure out what it could be. Back up the elevator to the helpful information desk people. I tell them that I've heard my name, but couldn't understand where I was to go. My mother is waiting for me at terminal 2D they say, and offer to call back over there to tell her that I've been located.
Back down the elevator, the escalator, onto the shuttle, through the parking lot, terminal 3, the other parking lot, up an escalator and along the other side of terminal 2 to terminal 2D. And there she is, waiting for me. I tell her that she should have stayed where she landed and I would have found her. She says that the agreement was to meet where we had met before, and so she had made her way over to terminal 2 after her plane had landed, not realizing that there were 7 subterminals, all looking pretty much the same. She had thought that 2D looked familiar (it probably did, they all do) and had settled down to wait for me to pick her up there. When I didn't come by 10:45 she started to get worried, and thought that perhaps I had tried to meet her at terminal 1, and so convinced the information desk to have me paged.
I call Blaise to let him know that we're on our way back.
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