Friday:
Woke up around 8. Mmm, delicious overpriced hotel breakfast. (Blueberry pancakes). Went to Al (BIL), Melissa (SIL), and Cletus (nephew, in utero)’s house (the old house — by bedtime Friday they all owned a record 2 houses). Blanche, Al, Gene all go to the bank so Blanche can open a bank account, leaving the boy and I alone in the house with 2 cats and a dog.
(Yes, the boy is still allergic to cats…furthermore, so is Gene…and furtherermore, so is Al. But I digress)….
It’s a pretty day so the boy and I hang out outside with Melissa’s dog Alice (she’s a bigger dog in size, maybe 50 lbs?). I was so freaking glad to see a dog! I whip out the cell phone and try to call D at work (voicemail :PPP) and decide, eff it, it’s vacation, so I call Brandy, my best friend. We chitchat for maybe a half-hour (BTW, she confirmed that long-haired Don Henley was the only time I had a thing for a long-haired man) when I decide that maybe I should put my Evil Stepmonster hat on and hang with the boy. The boy has had a little academic problem of late and cannot watch TV, so we have to amuse ourselves somehow. He also can’t play videogames (but the Game Boy was an exception because the TRIP TO OHIO IS LONG) but he can read. Ooh, but we didn’t bring our reading material to Al’s house. I literally have no idea how I made it through that long of a time without TV, the internet or the printed word. (Well, this was the home of 2 PH.Ds – there was reading, of course… if I wanted to read about U-Boats or old Porsches).
Eventually Melissa and Cletus came home (BTW, they’re not really going to name him that – I think they call him that mostly to irritate the grandmothers, a move I wholeheartedly support to the point where I will call the kid Cletus until he gets own damn PH.D) and we chit-chatted for awhile about anything besides the elephant in the room. (Melissa’s not an elephant, BTW, but I didn’t want to talk endlessly about the baby because Melissa was graduating with her FREAKING PH.D in two days and THAT IS DAMNED COOL). Trust me when I say that it’s difficult to talk to a 7 month pregnant woman about non-baby topics when you’re a non-pregnant woman who has read “Hello, My name is Mommy”, “The Mother of All Pregnancy Books” and “The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy.” Again, no clue how I did it. Rumor has it she’ll register this week.
Eventually, Al, Gene and Blanche return and the visiting contingent leaves for the hotel for a…ooh…nap. I napped. I took a nap. I rested. Mmmm, did I ever rest. Gollygeewillikers was it sweet! I was face-down-in-a-pool-of-drool asleep for at least an hour. Eventually Al and Melissa came by the hotel and we followed them to an upscale pizza place that I really like. Mmmm! Best part: Glass of wine. Maybe a glass and a half. Second best part: dessert, of course. Creme brulee.
On the way out, Melissa and I made plans to gather the group together the next morning around 11 to go to a crepe place that the boys really liked the last time we were all up in Ohio. Somehow, by the time we got in the car, our logical plan had turned into an excruciatingly early plan of crepes at something like 8 in the morning. Ummmmm….. whaaa?