Actually, I guess we were speaking of mice and cheese. (We were also speaking of “Of Mice and Cheese“.)
What I’m talking about now are those best-laid plans. As in “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” And here’s something I learned about this quote.
The saying is adapted from a line in “To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.”
Anyhow, various schemes have gone a-gley, as it were.
John had a scheme that we would go out to dinner to celebrate mother’s day, but that didn’t work out. John’s dad has had a couple of rough days, leading us to conclude that John’s mom wouldn’t want to take the time away from visiting hours.
Our original plan was to head home last night, however the roughness of the days for John’s dad led us to decide to push back our departure till today. I had my violin lesson scheduled for Monday at 5:00, so the plan was to be on the road by noon.
Our revised plan for the evening was to get take-out, and enjoy the feast at (John’s parents’) home. However, my grand scheme to eat food from my favorite restaurant in the universe has been thwarted. Those cruel folks are closed on Sundays! Noooo! (I at least got some enjoyment from reading the menu, and making plans for our feast before making the discovery of the restaurant’s startling lack of openness. Perhaps later I will post what we were going to order.)
John’s dad had an even rougher afternoon than anticipated, and has been transferred to another hospital as of yesterday afternoon. So John and his mother’s plans to be home in the middle of the night and get a good night’s sleep were somewhat adjusted, and replaced with a revised plan of waiting around in an emergency room, and not returning home until 3 in the morning.
The resulting lack of sleep led us to revise our plans for departure a bit, and I have rescheduled my violin lesson plan for later this week.
Happily, John’s dad has responded well to the treatment in the new hospital. So our new plan is to head out this afternoon, stop by the hospital and arrive home late tonight.
collecting tokens 
Al Forno’s in Providence is closed on Sundays I’m pretty sure. After many a repeated DOH-ing. Like Homer Simpson, we just do it again *forget* and again *forget* and again. That is one of my all time favorite restaurants.
I’m glad John’s dad is doing better. Safe travels.
i hope your belated night out is lovely. thoughts your way about John’s dad.
out of respect, i’ll only leave one comment this time, i promise.
KC-
I’m not sure I’ve been to Al Forno’s. The name is familiar, but I can’t picture it. (And thanks for the well wishes.)
jen-
First, please feel free to leave as many comments as your heart desires. There’s plenty of room!
And as for a night out, well, it that the expression “head out” is somewhat ambiguous. By “head out”, I meant depart. Sadly, no night out. And the dining we had was a few bites of a hospital deli egg-salad sandwich that made us fear we’d need to return to the hospital. But thanks for the thoughts.
Well, you know the saying: whatever can go wrong invariably will :)
Hope your day and John’s dad got way better!
Joni May-
Thanks for the kind thoughts. Our day did indeed go fine, and John’s dad seems to be contuing to do OK.