We took E's mom on a "field trip" to St. Augustine, loading her wheelchair into the back of the van and heading out with the kids and nurse in tow. E's sister had told us that his mother loves to visit a shrine there, the Mission Nombre de Dios, the place where the Spaniards landed in 1565 and celebrated the first Mass in America.

We park and get E's mom unloaded from the van and enter the grounds through the gift shop, which is full of religious statuary, including figurines showing  a fair-skinned Jesus playing football, baseball, and basketball. I kid you not. Jesus the All American athlete was an interesting cultural curiosity.

The shrine E's mom likes to visit at the Mission is devoted to Mary and motherhood. It's called Nuestra Senora de La Leche. The tiny ivy-covered chapel with the tile roof looks Spanish and has a simple altar, benches, and votive candles within its walls. This is a place where women struggling with infertility come to pray for divine intercession. I stand in the back absorbing all the energy of hope tinged with despair, and a woman comes up to me asking for money, holding a sign that says Hungry and Homeless.

We wander the grounds, pushing E's mom along in her wheelchair. It is a lovely place, and I pause before a statue of St. Francis that I particularly like. From the Mission, we drive in the van through the main tourist district. E's mom spots a restaurant on the water where she'd like to have lunch. We're not sure we can wheel her up onto the pier that leads to the restaurant, but we want to try because the restaurant clearly captured her interest and that's rare.

There isn't an available handicap parking spot on the street, so E and the nurse pull over to the side of the road and unload E's mom first. He'll park later. We have to take her out of the opposite side of the van from the door she normally enters and exits, and this proves a bit arduous. We finally succeed and wheel her across the street. We get all the way up to the pier and see a sign for the restaurant: "Closed on Wednesdays."

Closed on Wednesdays? WEDNESDAYS? Where am I? BELGIUM? We roll our eyes and walk back and struggle to get E's mom back into the van. We cruise the tourist area again looking for a place to eat and decide to eat at The White Lion. Once again, parking is a challenge, we can't get E's mom out of the van easily because we can't find a handicap spot, and it's a bit difficult. Once we get her into the wheelchair and walk over to the restaurant, we discover the handicap access is all the way on the other side of the building and we have to walk around the block to get there. It's hot. We're on the verge of getting grouchy as the wheelchair bumps over the brick sidewalks.

We're greeted by an icy blast of air in the restaurant and Lisa, our friendly waitress. She's very patient with E's mom, who is overwhelmed by the menu and a bit confused about what she wants to eat. She takes a long time to decide, and Lisa lets her, treating her with respect and not TALKING LOUDLY AT HER as if increasing volume faciliatates comprehension.

Once we survive placing the order and have tall, cold drinks in front of us, the kids and I start chatting and laughing and relaxing a bit. We're watching the food channel on the pub's TV and critiquing the cooking shows with a lot of humor. Lunch is delicious and E's mom wants dessert. The kids, of course, just LOVE this about Grandma. She always orders dessert!

Lisa describes our options, "We have cheesecake, strawberry shortcake, and The Giant Chocolate Thing, which is a big bowl of chocolate pudding, cake, and whipped cream in layers covered with chocolate candy on top."

E orders strawberry shortcake for his mom, cheesecake for the kids, and says, "My wife doesn't want dessert but I'll give her some of my Thing."

The waitress can't suppress a laugh when she considers E giving me his Thing for dessert.

I totally crack up. E turns red, laughs a bit, and then says to me, "You're not going to blog this, are you?"

Between giggles, I tell him that of course I'm going to blog it. I owe Bernie a good laugh.

July 25, 2007