The parent trip: Part one

 Welcome back to the bucket list segment of this blog, which I have touched on before because, well, it  never stops growing.

There are now so many things in mom's "container," "you can slide it across the floor after a bank job," as the character of Tom in Succession described an obnoxiously large Burberry satchel dangling from the arm of a Logan family outsider.

(My own bucket list includes watching that entire series again.) 

So which comes first, the bucket or the list? Metaphorically speaking, it's the list, since "kicking the bucket" is a slang term that denotes death - the end, list expired, so to speak. So before the bucket gets kicked, we tend to conjure ideas about what we want to do in life, or what we haven't and should. 

My mother is 88, and I'd say she started dropping ideas into her bucket at about the same time she stopped driving and became more dependent on others to get around. In no particular order, the list  includes see New Orleans, eat in New Orleans, go to a Broadway show, take a cruise, put more money in the bank account, try not to take money out of the back account.

Some items are random, like those she expresses interest in because someone else has, then forgets about. Such as the time I told her I would love to go back to Paris, and she replied: "I'll go with you." Not exactly bucket-worthy; more like a lunch pail that includes the bonus Tastykakes.

As I write this, we are prepping for a trip to Portland, another item on my mom's list that involves visiting one of her grandchildren. Like a weekend bus trip we took to Pennsylvania in the fall, there is prep involved with this bucket item, namely tending to her hair, with its straight, straw-like back - think Donald Trump without the orange - an area she can't reach with a curling iron. 

"I just need a wash and set," she tells me. "The hair is everything." 

Three day before we fly, she lets me know she's in the process of packing. "I have everything laid out on my bed," she ensures me. I know the clothes include the obligatory white pants and shoes, because, well, it's nearly summer, the season for that color.

As this bucket list item requires flying, I have a certain amount of trepidation about getting mom  through the airport and into her seat, something for which you can't really prepare. 

But at least the hair will be washed and set.  

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