Several nights ago I was talking to my mom on the phone, making plans to come out to the suburbs for Thanksgiving. "Well I'll call you later and tell you the train schedule," I said. "Oh," she replied, "I'll be gone." I couldn't tell what I heard in her voice, but it was odd. "You'll be gone?" I asked. "Well it's Ed (her boyfriend) and my second anniversary. So we're spending the night at Sybaris." I was speechless. I had no speech. Sybaris? My mother? "Well that's...something," I responded. "Yeah," she said. "I've never heard of it, but everyone sounds weird when I mention it." Yeah. Yeah, they'll do that.

That night at work I made the mistake of telling Kami and Dan about this. "Sybaris?!" they said. "That place with the heart-shaped hot tubs and those velvet satin sheets?" "How can the same sheets be both velvet and satin?" I asked. "Well," Dan explained, "they start off as a velvet sheet and a satin sheet but with all the stuff they're doin' there they just kinda get pushed into one and-" "Okay, okay, I get it," I said. Clearly everyone knew about Sybaris except for my mother.

Then last night at Thanksgiving dinner it was brought up again. "Yeah, it was real nice," Ed said. He went on to explain that there were lots of mirrors and silver. I immediately asked, "Didn't you say that you had wine?" "Really relaxing." Ed went on. I excused myself to the kitchen and opened up a bottle of Shiraz. When I returned my mom was telling me that the place had been recommended to her by her friend Jeri, who was an ex-girlfriend of my grandfather. This also meant that she was in her 80's. Yet another mental imagine I didn't need it my head. I quickly downed my glass of wine and poured another.

This is why I avoid going home for the holidays.