monkeymom's Diaryland Diary
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There and Back again.
Okay, here's the report on the trip! Kim did not go with us, but she did
get some driving practice when she drove to CHICAGO with Rich! He took her and her harp for a yearly checkup at the harp factory, and let her drive, so good for him for being a non-nervous dad.
We decided to leave at the last minute on Tuesday afternoon, because Tuesday
Rachel worked until noon and she had Wednesday off, and she didn't have any
other day she could go. Rich has had quite a few days off recently for
illness (and he's still not well), so he had too much to do at work and he
didn't want to take another day off, so he stayed here (and someone needed
to be here for the dog).
Kim had slept over at her friend's house and was still there, because they were having a Frodo-fest; that is, they were watching all three of the Lord of the Rings movies back-to-back! We were going to pick her up on the way, but when we stopped there, she was having fun and didn't want to leave, and then she told me (for the first time) that her driving lesson was changed to Wed. at noon, and we wouldn't be back yet. So she stayed there and Rich picked her up after work. He drove her to the
driving lesson on his lunch hour Wed. and she walked home.
So it was just Rachel and me, and we threw a few things in a bag and took a
box half-full of Diet Pepsi with us and left. We took turns driving but
Rachel did well over half of the driving, and we listened to audio books on the way down and had a nice trip. We didn't leave here until 2 in the afternoon, so we didn't get down there until 9 at night.
We called and told them we were
on the way and they wanted to take us to dinner at their favorite restaurant ("Oh, they have the best spring rolls!") when we got there, but we
called about half-way there to let them know it would be too late to go out
to eat when we got there, and we got something to eat in the car around 7.
When we got to the house, everyone was excited to see us, and the (hideous) dog was running around, and they had the table set for a big dinner at 9 at night!
Remember that we had just eaten? So they gave us HUGE plates of (very good)
spaghetti, they had a beautiful salad, and there was garlic bread. We ate
as much as we could, and when we were stuffed and couldn't even finish what
was on our plates, they brought out big slices of pie! Oh my goodness, we
were in agony, we were so full!
Apparently Grandma and Shirley stay up late every night to watch The Nanny
before they go to bed at midnight, so they were wide awake and sat and
talked to us until we said we were tired and needed to go to bed. They have plenty of beds, so we slept there and shared a room. We could hardly sleep because of our groaning stomachs, though!
We woke up at 8 in the morning and they were all upstairs talking, and when
the (hideous) dog heard us moving around, she came running downstairs and
barked for us to get up, which was cute. We took showers, and I just
mention this because the showers were wonderful! They have great water
pressure, and all different kinds of shampoo, just like at home! We live in
an old house and there isn't good water pressure, so it was a huge treat!
We finally had breakfast about 10 and then I told them we needed to leave by
2 and we probably wouldn't have time to go out for lunch, so they wanted to
go out to eat right away! We talked them out of that , and decided we would
go out for an early lunch in a couple of hours. We played Mexican
train for a while and then went to lunch.
The restaurant was nice and the food was good ("Did you like the spring rolls? They have the best spring rolls!"), and everyone there knows
them, so that was fun. After lunch we went back to the house for a few minutes, but then we really had to leave.
I was just numb from listening to the constant barrage of talking, especially from the husband, who never shuts up, so by the time we left, I couldn't even listen to the radio in the car! I turned it off and we had blessed silence for the first few minutes, and then Rachel asked if we were going to try to find a yarn store!
At first I couldn't imagine trying to do anything but just head for home and I was wishing for a Xanax, but as we drove around and talked a little (about who was related to who, because Rachel was trying to sort it all out in her head after hearing them babble about family all day), I started to come back to life slowly, and decided that a yarn shop visit would make us feel much better!
We stopped at a store to look at a phone book and I tore out the page with yarn shops on it (don't worry, it was an old tattered phone book, and anyway, the clerks at the store were unfriendly, so I guess we showed them). We called a couple of shops and found one that sounded easy to get to. It wasn't quite as easy as we had hoped, but we found it, and had a nice hour or so fondling yarn and just sitting on the couch soaking up atmosphere. We bought some yarn, too.
Grandma wants us to help sort through her boxes of stuff, so we're going to
go back in the summer and go through them with her. It wasn't MY idea, it was Rachel's! I don't care if I never go back there again.
11:46 p.m. - 2005-04-03
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