My mother has decided that I am actually a child of Mario Andretti. She claims that I drive at speeds seen at the Indy 500.

This is not true. I just believe that the speed limit should be 80mph. She disagrees rather strenuously.

This has all come about as the result of our trip to Northampton today. She needed to go up to get a copy of her marriage certificate and she also wanted to see her friends. I had volunteered to take her, and I really didn’t mind doing it.

Mom decided to buy turkey sandwiches at a local turkey farm (well former turkey farm, I don’t think they actually have any live turkeys there anymore, although they did when I was a kid). These are great sandwiches and she knew that the "girls" liked them. Her idea was that we’d have a picnic at Look Park.

So we hit the road at about ten this morning, and I really did keep the speed down. I felt as if I was crawling at 65mph. I’d try to beef it up every now and then, but didn’t want her to be flipping out.

It was 11:30 before we got to Hamp, and we managed to find the City Clerk and get her stuff done quickly.

I would have loved to have stayed downtown and wandered through some of the shops. But we had to get to my godmother’s house by noon.

From there we went to the park, which is really a wonderful place. I hadn’t been in years, and it had changed quite a bit. The pool is gone and in its place is a miniature golf course. The pedal boats are still there, though, and that used to be one of my favorite things to do on a hot day.

Not that I had the chance to do that today.

Basically what we did was find a shady table near the river where we sat and ate our sandwiches. My mother had a nice time, as did her friends. I guess I had an ok time, but I would have liked to have been able to take off on my own.

After lunch we left the "girls" and went to the cemetery.

The plants weren't dead. While we were there a family friend arrived. Her husband is buried in the next plot.

There's a story behind this one. My grandmother's house was a duplex, and for years and years the O'Briens lived on the other side, so when my Uncle John died they bought the plot next to ours so they could stay neighbors. When Norma comes to visit Alan's grave, she takes the time to water ours as well, so the plants were fine. I guess it's also been quite stormy up there so the plants have been rained on pretty frequently.

I still had an unreal sense of being there. Not upset, but just not registering as to where I was and that my father was there.

It’s just plain weird.

The drive home seemed slow to me, as there was a ton of traffic. My mother kept her eagle eye on the speedometer and would start coughing if I went too fast.

Sigh.

She coughed a lot.

I hung out at her house for a while when we got home, and my brother called from the Netherlands. It was good to talk to him. He’s been gone for two weeks and will be back on Sunday.

I went home and sort of collapsed, but realized that my normally cool apartment was far warmer than it should have been, given that the two air conditioners had been running all day. I opened the front of the one in the living room and discovered that it was encased in ice. It looked like an old fashioned refrigerator that needed defrosting.

I have no idea what the problem is, so I just turned it off totally. I figure at the very least the ice needs to melt. In this heat that shouldn’t take very long.

Fortunately the bedroom is still cool, so I should be comfortable when I sleep.

Time to watch tonight’s episode of the "1900 House" on PBS. Thank goodness there’s new programming somewhere!