The Longfellow Bridge, Considering

I told myself I wanted to be on the road by 6:30AM.  At 7:00AM I was waiting for my mom to emerge from the facilities so I could wish her a farewell.  “Oh. You’re still here.” She said.  “Yeah.  I wanted to see you.”  I told myself I’d grab a Starbucks at one of those drive through joints on the way out to the Taconic along Route 44.  But Waze had me take Route 55 instead. And there were no watering holes that I saw before I was near the entrance to the great parkway. 

The call I was supposed to have at eight asked if we could talk thirty-minutes earlier.  Certainly, though I’d be snaking along the shoulder-less Taconic at that time, not cruising less stressfully along the broad Mass Pike.  I tried to ring his Brazilian cell with my new Google Fi Pixel toy, but I couldn’t seem to connect.  Perhaps because he’s roaming in Shanghai.  No worries.  We chat on Wechat, held aloft by 3G roaming and this worked reasonably well.  I dropped once and then third time but it was OK.  By the end we had rapport and a plan which was about as much as we could have hoped for. 

The WAZE app blurted out that we had three hours to go when we reached the Mass Pike.  That can’t be right.  The sign there says its only one hundred and twenty miles and that’s doable in two hours, right?  Unless there is brutal traffic that the god-like AI knows about but I don’t.  Driving I second guess if I’m actually even on the Pike.  Don’t they have a toll booth?  I guess not.  It takes me past one and then another Massachusetts exit to convince myself: (Lee?  Lenox?  Those are all in Western Mass.,) that I’m actually on Bay State backbone.  The traffic is . . . completely unencumbered.  I decide that anything under 80MPH is conservative on this 65MPH highway.  Waze keeps notifying me every time there is a cop up ahead and with that I‘m down to under 70MPH. 

I’m going to a hotel in Cambridge.  That’s where my first meeting is as well. But as I pass the Cambridge exit that I remember from all those years ago, I can see that I’m heading through the Big Dig and into Boston itself.  I don’t want to be in Copley Square.  I double check the address.  The address is correct.  Could it be that the all-knowing WAZE A.I. has gotten confused?  I do one and then another loop and am soon in front of the Longfellow Bridge, considering the mournful etching “1910” in the stone facade of one of the supporting stations.  Now were’ going back to Cambridge.  Now I see what it is I need to do.   

Thursday 8/15/19