I used to love to travel by plane. That dates back twenty years, when travel for work at my old consulting firm meant staying at the Waldorf Astoria or Four Seasons and involved transatlantic trips to Germany to see clients. It didn’t take long before that glamour wore thin. Too many delayed flights and red eyes can turn even the best traveler into a jaded one. Add in the restrictions and security challenges that we face these days and air travel is now just a giant pain in the a**.
Tonight I am wishing I was on a flight to Barcelona. Rather than go spend a week doing something spontaneous and fun, I am being responsible. This time. I just made a promise to myself that as I have opportunities to do stuff like this, I need to find ways to make it happen. Because life is way too short.
As I was fantasizing about hopping a flight and escaping real life for a week away, I remembered back to just over a decade ago. And recalled the recipe for disaster for international travel.
Tuscany in Summer Treats, Serves 6.
Ingredients:
1 toddler, just potty trained**
1 infant, who doesn’t require a seat of her own. Prepare to hold for over 7 hours, overnight.
2 adults, who are in desperate need for time away
2 loving grandparents, living in Tuscany for the summer
**Add Benedryl if necessary to sleep on flight
Assemble together these first four ingredients. Load on overbooked flight to Florence, Italy. Be careful not to shake the first two while in air. Highly explosive.
Once assembled, you may find you need to redress toddler if explosion occurs. If your toolkit is fully prepped, you’ve brought a change of clothes for her because she has thrown up all over you and herself. If this is your first time with this recipe, we assume that you have not. Be forewarned that Benedryl doesn’t always work the way it is supposed to. If this is the case, feel free to use infant’s one spare t-shirt as a toddler spare until you retrieve your luggage.
After 7 1/2 hours, remove all from flight.
Add remaining two ingredients. First four will look extremely limp and smell slightly odd, but adding this new liberal sprinkling of love and a running commentary about why the toddler is dressed like Britney Spears will ensure that these treats will be almost ready. But not quite yet.
Ensure that you ditch the infant’s stroller halfway through the trip because you can’t roll it on Florentine cobblestones. Prepare to carry her in a Baby Bjorn for the duration of the trip.
Also, take care to ensure that you are staying with your parents. Because everyone should live in close proximity to their parents when traveling internationally with two small children. There is no stress involved at all.
Spend a week, and ensure all six ingredients get zero rest or relaxation. Ample quantities of espresso allow this process to move rapidly.
Reload the first four onto plane, and realize you are not Giada de Laurentiis. Accept this recipe might have been too complex for you. Hone your skills and reattempt later. This is an advanced recipe - it may take several tries to work.
Return a decade later. Strain out the last two ingredients and remove one of the parents. Stand back and remember with a smile the great memories from that failed earlier trip. And the even better ones from this most recent one.
Feel free to apply espresso and love liberally.
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