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Visiting die Familie
26 Nov 2011 05:19 pmWednesday morning, I drove up to Maryland for Thanksgiving. I stayed with my grandparents for multiple reasons: 1) my mom's guest bed is dreadfully uncomfortable, 2) her house is smoky and gives me migraines, 3) Grandpa's 87 and Grandma's 82.
They live in a retirement/assisted living apartment complex. They're in one of the retirement buildings. If they need to, they can move into the more assisted sections of the facility. They've been there 13 years, and they love it. Their apartment is cute, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, living/dining room, tiny kitchen (there's a cafeteria on site).
Anyway, the drive up Wednesday was fine, if windy and periodically cloudy. I discovered that popping my sunroof decreases the sideways motion when the wind comes up hard. I didn't hit any traffic until Fredericksburg, though it persisted the whole way to 270. 495 wasn't as bad as 95. I got to NoVa around 2:30 or 3, then I made it to my grandparents' around 4:30. So a tad over 7 hours including 3 stops.
We went out to an Italian restaurant for dinner, then I showed them all my travel photos. We started with last summer's European vacation, then I paged quickly through the Berlin Xmas trip and Japan. Grandma said I travel a lot. As often as possible!
She gave me a bunch of stuff from Bath & Body Works, which always has a perfumey smell to it. Ah well. I also got socks. Grandma likes putting together little bags for us, and they've usually got shower stuff, socks, jewelry, etc in them. So I said, "yay, socks!" and she asked if I wanted more. She apparently just buys socks at the store when she sees them, and she sticks them in a drawer to either give to people or replace her socks when they wear out. So, anyway, I ended up with a dozen new pairs of cute socks. She also gave me a fleece vest, a sweater, and a velvety hoodie. And a copy of The Kite Runner. And a brooch that was her aunt's.
I also ended up with 2 bags of Nestle chips (1 milk, 1 semi-sweet) and a slice each of cranberry and chocolate pecan pie. (Let me tell you, chocolate pecan pie is fucking AMAZING. I bet it would be awesome with hazelnuts instead. Nutella pie? Hell yes.) Every year at Thanksgiving, Grandpa makes three pies: one either pumpkin or pecan, and two cranberry pies. He takes the pumpkin/pecan and one cranberry to mom's for dinner, and the other cranberry he eats for breakfast for the next week. Mom will eat the leftover cranberry pie for breakfast, too.
Thursday morning before we drove out to mom's, I sat with my laptop and wrote some more of my spy story. It's up to 2000 words, and I just finished the second entry (the one that was partway through in the last locked post). I'll see about doing more on that tomorrow. Today I've been catching up on teh intarwebs and doing laundry. Tomorrow I need to clean the bathroom, but that won't take all day.
I took mom most of a jar of sauerkraut from the farmers market. It's really nice, fairly mild stuff. Ben & I can always buy another jar, and I want to try it with caraway. Because I bet that would make it more awesome. Mom enjoyed it, and so did the grandparents. For years, I thought I was a bad German because I hated sauerkraut. As it turns out, I just hate the kind of sauerkraut that comes from bags in the supermarket.
My grandfather grew up in a German immigrant community in Pennsylvania. His father, who was born in Silesia (now Poland), had a friend whose house they'd go to that always smelled funky. They made their own sauerkraut in their basement.
So mom, G&G, my sister, and I all hung out at mom's for a while. Bin brought a quiche and some veggies for roasting (squash, beets, potatoes, carrots), I brought stuff for the sweet potato casserole which went over so well with Ben's folks last year (and equally well with mine this year; I xeroxed the recipe for Gram), and mom had everything else (except Gramps' pies). "Everything else" was a turkey, corn, green beans, rolls, cornbread stuffing, appetizers, and gravy. The only things I couldn't eat were the turkey and gravy (made with beef fat). Mom actually read the labels on the stuffing packages and determined that the Pepperidge Farms one was OK, but the Stove Top one had chicken something in it. Go mom? She just didn't read the gravy closely enough. (Which is fine; I'm not big on gravy as it is.)
We ate a bunch of food; everyone loved the potatoes. We sat around and talked while waiting for there to be room for dessert. All of us but mom talked politics and world news; thankfully no one there is knee-jerk Republican. Let me assure you that discussing things with my family is less stressful than with Ben's dad, because they don't treat living room conversations like they're Socratic inquisitions.
The grandparents are registered independent, which in MD (and NC) means you can vote in either primary. They think the current crop of GOP presidential candidates are really out there. I have no idea how I got to be the way I am--engaged with politics, interested in knowing about the world and seeing the world--growing up with my mother. She's completely uninterested in current events, news, politics, or traveling. I can't imagine being so completely isolated and insulated.
After dinner, grandma brought out this envelope from the Maryland Anatomy Board and asked if we had any objections to them donating their bodies to science. I think that's pretty awesome, even if it's a somewhat morbid Thanksgiving dinner topic.
Grandpa drove us back to their place, which was a little scary. (I mentioned that he's 87, right?) We talked a bit more before getting more sleep.
Friday morning, Grandpa made scrambled eggs, and I put mine on toast because I like them that way, dammit. We talked a bit more before I had to leave. I only hit a little traffic on 495 in Virginia, near the Woodbridge/Manassas exit. I left a little after 9 and pulled into my garage at 2:30, including 2 or 3 stops. Not hitting NoVa traffic makes a big difference. (Well, on the way up, there was more traffic on 27, and more cars at the stop lights, and I hit very little traffic on 27 on the way back.)
It was a lot of driving for a short trip, but, like going up for the 4th of July party, it was worth it. I'm not really close to my family as a whole, but Gram and Grampa have always been there. They're the reason I had clothes in high school.
If we had functional mass transit in this country, I'd go up more often.
They live in a retirement/assisted living apartment complex. They're in one of the retirement buildings. If they need to, they can move into the more assisted sections of the facility. They've been there 13 years, and they love it. Their apartment is cute, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, living/dining room, tiny kitchen (there's a cafeteria on site).
Anyway, the drive up Wednesday was fine, if windy and periodically cloudy. I discovered that popping my sunroof decreases the sideways motion when the wind comes up hard. I didn't hit any traffic until Fredericksburg, though it persisted the whole way to 270. 495 wasn't as bad as 95. I got to NoVa around 2:30 or 3, then I made it to my grandparents' around 4:30. So a tad over 7 hours including 3 stops.
We went out to an Italian restaurant for dinner, then I showed them all my travel photos. We started with last summer's European vacation, then I paged quickly through the Berlin Xmas trip and Japan. Grandma said I travel a lot. As often as possible!
She gave me a bunch of stuff from Bath & Body Works, which always has a perfumey smell to it. Ah well. I also got socks. Grandma likes putting together little bags for us, and they've usually got shower stuff, socks, jewelry, etc in them. So I said, "yay, socks!" and she asked if I wanted more. She apparently just buys socks at the store when she sees them, and she sticks them in a drawer to either give to people or replace her socks when they wear out. So, anyway, I ended up with a dozen new pairs of cute socks. She also gave me a fleece vest, a sweater, and a velvety hoodie. And a copy of The Kite Runner. And a brooch that was her aunt's.
I also ended up with 2 bags of Nestle chips (1 milk, 1 semi-sweet) and a slice each of cranberry and chocolate pecan pie. (Let me tell you, chocolate pecan pie is fucking AMAZING. I bet it would be awesome with hazelnuts instead. Nutella pie? Hell yes.) Every year at Thanksgiving, Grandpa makes three pies: one either pumpkin or pecan, and two cranberry pies. He takes the pumpkin/pecan and one cranberry to mom's for dinner, and the other cranberry he eats for breakfast for the next week. Mom will eat the leftover cranberry pie for breakfast, too.
Thursday morning before we drove out to mom's, I sat with my laptop and wrote some more of my spy story. It's up to 2000 words, and I just finished the second entry (the one that was partway through in the last locked post). I'll see about doing more on that tomorrow. Today I've been catching up on teh intarwebs and doing laundry. Tomorrow I need to clean the bathroom, but that won't take all day.
I took mom most of a jar of sauerkraut from the farmers market. It's really nice, fairly mild stuff. Ben & I can always buy another jar, and I want to try it with caraway. Because I bet that would make it more awesome. Mom enjoyed it, and so did the grandparents. For years, I thought I was a bad German because I hated sauerkraut. As it turns out, I just hate the kind of sauerkraut that comes from bags in the supermarket.
My grandfather grew up in a German immigrant community in Pennsylvania. His father, who was born in Silesia (now Poland), had a friend whose house they'd go to that always smelled funky. They made their own sauerkraut in their basement.
So mom, G&G, my sister, and I all hung out at mom's for a while. Bin brought a quiche and some veggies for roasting (squash, beets, potatoes, carrots), I brought stuff for the sweet potato casserole which went over so well with Ben's folks last year (and equally well with mine this year; I xeroxed the recipe for Gram), and mom had everything else (except Gramps' pies). "Everything else" was a turkey, corn, green beans, rolls, cornbread stuffing, appetizers, and gravy. The only things I couldn't eat were the turkey and gravy (made with beef fat). Mom actually read the labels on the stuffing packages and determined that the Pepperidge Farms one was OK, but the Stove Top one had chicken something in it. Go mom? She just didn't read the gravy closely enough. (Which is fine; I'm not big on gravy as it is.)
We ate a bunch of food; everyone loved the potatoes. We sat around and talked while waiting for there to be room for dessert. All of us but mom talked politics and world news; thankfully no one there is knee-jerk Republican. Let me assure you that discussing things with my family is less stressful than with Ben's dad, because they don't treat living room conversations like they're Socratic inquisitions.
The grandparents are registered independent, which in MD (and NC) means you can vote in either primary. They think the current crop of GOP presidential candidates are really out there. I have no idea how I got to be the way I am--engaged with politics, interested in knowing about the world and seeing the world--growing up with my mother. She's completely uninterested in current events, news, politics, or traveling. I can't imagine being so completely isolated and insulated.
After dinner, grandma brought out this envelope from the Maryland Anatomy Board and asked if we had any objections to them donating their bodies to science. I think that's pretty awesome, even if it's a somewhat morbid Thanksgiving dinner topic.
Grandpa drove us back to their place, which was a little scary. (I mentioned that he's 87, right?) We talked a bit more before getting more sleep.
Friday morning, Grandpa made scrambled eggs, and I put mine on toast because I like them that way, dammit. We talked a bit more before I had to leave. I only hit a little traffic on 495 in Virginia, near the Woodbridge/Manassas exit. I left a little after 9 and pulled into my garage at 2:30, including 2 or 3 stops. Not hitting NoVa traffic makes a big difference. (Well, on the way up, there was more traffic on 27, and more cars at the stop lights, and I hit very little traffic on 27 on the way back.)
It was a lot of driving for a short trip, but, like going up for the 4th of July party, it was worth it. I'm not really close to my family as a whole, but Gram and Grampa have always been there. They're the reason I had clothes in high school.
If we had functional mass transit in this country, I'd go up more often.
