Ok, it just seems that long.
We all woke up and decided to head to the mall and walk around. We actually wanted to hit the Apple store for a reason, but we figured a nice mall walk would waste some time. Hubby announces that we need to get ready to go to the mall.
I shower.
J showers.
Hubby showers.
M and B are already dressed.
I say I’m ready.
J says that he’s ready.
Hubby says that he’s ready.
M says she needs to go change her shoes.
B says that he needs to go change his pants.
Fifteen minutes later they emerge from the bedroom.
I’m ready
J’s ready
hubby is ready
Now B has to go downstairs for something.
M is wandering around the house with her purse.
Another fifteen minutes pass, no B, I go look for him, he’s standing at the doorway waiting.
I round everyone up, M has a last minute need to go into the guestroom and another 10 minutes pass.
It took us an hour to get them ready after we told them we were ready.
We drive to the mall and get the traveling tour “oh look, a horse farm, that’s a big horse farm, how many horses are on that farm?” We don’t know. “What do they do with those horses?” We don’t know. “Oh look, its the Renaissance Festival, do they have that every year?” Yes. “Is all that traffic going west bound people coming back from the shore?” We don’t know. “That’s a lot of cars, I’m sure its people coming back from the shore” Sure, fine, its people coming back from the shore. “I think there would be more cars than that if people are coming back from the shore.” Ok, sure, whatever.
Get to the mall, walk in and go straight to Starbucks (of course). We’re in line, M and B are standing outside of the store in front of a line of people wanting to order. I tell the counter person that we’re all together and order, hubby orders, J orders and then motions for his parents to come up and order. M walks up to the second cashier and announces that we’re all together, and then just stands there, blocking the second line. We tell her to order. She ponders, still standing in the second line blocking the line. We tell her to move over to let others order, she gets snitty and orders. Then B rushes up and insists on paying, so we go stand in the waiting for drinks line. B pays for the drinks and walks over to us, M is now standing in the 1st line blocking people, we tell her to move over, she gets snitty.
Get our drinks and walk over to the Apple store, find the piece of software that we want. M goes and sits outside of the store while J and I try to convince B that he needs to buy a Mac. He’s infamous for taking Windows computers and totally hosing them up on a monthly basis.
We get our software and then walk down the mall. As usual, we’re all in front and B and M are lagging about 300 feet behind us. We slow down, they slow down. We stop to let them catch up and they stop. Its maddening and we’re all three bitching about their annoying habit, turn around and they’re gone. J walks back to find them, they’ve darted into a store and when they see J walking back, they scurry out. He asks them if they were done browsing and they insist that they don’t need anything. We continue our slow walk down the mall.
We stop at Borders to look around, I scurried off to some section to get away from everyone, so it was pretty much a mad flee to escape them. I get a text that they’re leaving after a while, so I come down and they are all gathered near the entrance, B and M are blocking the entrance, so we move them along so people can get into the store. Once again, the maddening crawl toward where we park, except this time we stopped to make fun of something, and M takes off down the mall. She’s really hauling, with a purpose, heading for something. I guessed correctly that she was heading for the Godiva kiosk and sure enough she stops there and picks up some chocolates. Now, we were going to pass this kiosk on the way back, so we have no idea why she didn’t just walk with us down the mall and then say “Oh, I’d like to stop and buy something here” and we’d wait for her, she just takes off down the mall without us.
We ended up waiting for her anyway, then we made them walk in front of us the rest of the way back.
Once loaded in the SUV we headed to a shopping plaza and got more Starbucks, then headed to the Whole Foods for stuff to grill that night. It took them 40 questions before they understood that Whole Foods was an organic store, and I really had no idea where they shipped their produce from, even though they asked me 14 times. “Do they ship it from California?” I don’t know. “Berries are out of season, so where do they ship their berries from?” I don’t know.
B and I got into line because he insisted on paying, M stood in front of the exit, blocking people from leaving, J and hubby went outside to get out of the way and have nervous breakdowns. The cashier wasn’t particularly slow or anything, and yet as we left, M announced extremely loudly “was she in training, is that why she’s so slow”. I scurried outside with the bag.
We go home. “So, do they race those horses at the horse farm?” I don’t know.
They get a phone call on their cell, its the guy that’s suppose to fax them stuff for their golf tournament. For the 500th time we give them our fax number, and hubby preps the computer to receive faxes. A half hour passes. An hour passes, no faxes. Just as hubby was about to install the new software on his computer, the phone rings, yep, the faxes. Except the guy can’t hit the send button or who knows what, so for the next two hours the phone rings off the hook while this moron tries to send the faxes, and we can’t call him back to explain AGAIN to just hit the send button when the phone picks up because he’s speed dialing the number to send the faxes. The guy finally gets through and figures out to hit the send button, and we get one fax. Then he calls again to send another fax. Um, shove all of the paper in and send multiple pages... but no, he’s sending one page, hanging up, dialing, sending another page, etc. Each time he tries to send, he seems to forget to hit the freakin send button. M is getting more and more flustered with each ring of the phone, and hubby says “I should just have me grab the faxes downstairs instead of letting the computer pick it up since the guy can’t figure it out”. M immediately runs and tells B that I have the faxes downstairs. I hear someone coming down the stairs, and then go back up the stairs. Meanwhile I’ve grown tired of the constantly ringing phone, so I just intercept the freakin faxes downstairs without realizing what hubby had said. So I walk upstairs with a fax as hubby is explaining to M that I wasn’t getting faxes downstairs but I could if he asked me to. I hand her the fax and she gets this pompous look on her face and says something like “well, I guess they were going downstairs after all” and I grabbed hubby before he could strangle her.
Once again they have salmon and we picked up a steak for me at Whole Foods because I don’t like fish. We’re outside on the deck having a pleasant discussion about nothing in general, wind power I think (good lord) and the food is ready.
I eat my steak with ketchup. Apparently this is not acceptable in the world, despite the fact that people throws A-1, Heinz 57, seared and braised, seasoning and all sorts of manner of other condiments on a steak and that’s perfectly fine. I eat mine with ketchup, have for 40 some years. Frankly I’m a bit sick of people commenting on it, I don’t bitch at them for putting butter on their baked potato, so leave me the F alone. Yes, B makes some snide comment about “ruining” my steak with ketchup. I look at him and say “well, since I pay the mortgage for this house I’ll eat whatever I damn well want on my steak in my own house or anywhere I want actually”. I wanted to say something to the effect that if I felt compelled to wipe my butt with the steak and eat it, its none of his damn business, but toned it down a bit.
After we had all eaten, I went and sat in the kitchen because I knew B and M would follow me there instead of standing in the computer room while J and hubby played their computer game. I had hoped to cull B away from M so I could ask him about his exploding heart that he keeps inferring throughout his visit that this would be the last visit, and I won’t have to worry about that next year because I’ll be DEAD, you know, little hints that something is up but they won’t tell you. It was a battle of wills because M plopped herself down at the table and we had a nice little chat about the seafood place where if you get there before 6pm and order you can get the special:
Well, if you get there before 6pm then you get this wonderful special for 16 dollars and it comes with an appetizer, a salad, then you get 6 shrimp (pronounced srimp) and a small steak and you get dessert, which is absolutely wonderful and there’s some times that we’ll go in there and not be very hungry so we’ll just get one special and I’ll have the srimp and B will have the steak and that’s plenty of food for us, but other times we’ll go and both get the special and then there’s plenty of leftovers (which probably reside in her purse until she’s ready to eat it) to take home and have a very nice meal on those leftovers.
I got to hear how that place bought another piece of land and they’re building a steak house so instead of surf and turf, I’m sure it’ll be turf and surf on the menu (ha ha), and how they weren’t that impressed with some of the new hamburger places and how others just rave about them, but they don’t like the hamburgers there and they think the other hamburger place is so much better. On and on and on and on.
FINALLY M announced that she was going to bed, so I hijacked B to ask him what the scoop was on his exploding heart. The gist is that he’s had several stents put in, and the doctors told him that he had 1-2 years and then things could go bad. This month is the one year anniversary of that announcement, so B feels that at any moment he’ll keel. Ok, so I ask him what he wanted to do with the remaining time and shouldn’t he be doing more to tell his sons how proud of them he is, etc. Well, he wants to help more people, but he doesn’t, and he wished he had done things differently so that his sons could have better lives (um... ok... gee thanks), and generally it was a whole bunch of coulda, woulda, shoulda swimming in lake me and his sons are miserable and aren’t as successful as he’d like because he didn’t take the garbage out on thursdays instead of wednesdays or some stupid crap. In a nutshell, it was pretty much a whole bunch of woe and wishing, but no effort on his part to do anything about it.
He also wished that they would be more interested in the heirlooms that they had, and he was worried that the lamps that his father had given him would end up in the “wrong hands”. Um, excuse me? He didn’t want to give them to J because his wife would give them to her sister and he didn’t want her sister to have them. Um... are ya kidding me?
So, in a nutshell, B is more worried about his heirlooms going to the right place than he is that his sons are worried about him, or that they are happy and successful. He doesn’t think they’re happy or successful enough. Good lord. How do you deal with that?
We all woke up and decided to head to the mall and walk around. We actually wanted to hit the Apple store for a reason, but we figured a nice mall walk would waste some time. Hubby announces that we need to get ready to go to the mall.
I shower.
J showers.
Hubby showers.
M and B are already dressed.
I say I’m ready.
J says that he’s ready.
Hubby says that he’s ready.
M says she needs to go change her shoes.
B says that he needs to go change his pants.
Fifteen minutes later they emerge from the bedroom.
I’m ready
J’s ready
hubby is ready
Now B has to go downstairs for something.
M is wandering around the house with her purse.
Another fifteen minutes pass, no B, I go look for him, he’s standing at the doorway waiting.
I round everyone up, M has a last minute need to go into the guestroom and another 10 minutes pass.
It took us an hour to get them ready after we told them we were ready.
We drive to the mall and get the traveling tour “oh look, a horse farm, that’s a big horse farm, how many horses are on that farm?” We don’t know. “What do they do with those horses?” We don’t know. “Oh look, its the Renaissance Festival, do they have that every year?” Yes. “Is all that traffic going west bound people coming back from the shore?” We don’t know. “That’s a lot of cars, I’m sure its people coming back from the shore” Sure, fine, its people coming back from the shore. “I think there would be more cars than that if people are coming back from the shore.” Ok, sure, whatever.
Get to the mall, walk in and go straight to Starbucks (of course). We’re in line, M and B are standing outside of the store in front of a line of people wanting to order. I tell the counter person that we’re all together and order, hubby orders, J orders and then motions for his parents to come up and order. M walks up to the second cashier and announces that we’re all together, and then just stands there, blocking the second line. We tell her to order. She ponders, still standing in the second line blocking the line. We tell her to move over to let others order, she gets snitty and orders. Then B rushes up and insists on paying, so we go stand in the waiting for drinks line. B pays for the drinks and walks over to us, M is now standing in the 1st line blocking people, we tell her to move over, she gets snitty.
Get our drinks and walk over to the Apple store, find the piece of software that we want. M goes and sits outside of the store while J and I try to convince B that he needs to buy a Mac. He’s infamous for taking Windows computers and totally hosing them up on a monthly basis.
We get our software and then walk down the mall. As usual, we’re all in front and B and M are lagging about 300 feet behind us. We slow down, they slow down. We stop to let them catch up and they stop. Its maddening and we’re all three bitching about their annoying habit, turn around and they’re gone. J walks back to find them, they’ve darted into a store and when they see J walking back, they scurry out. He asks them if they were done browsing and they insist that they don’t need anything. We continue our slow walk down the mall.
We stop at Borders to look around, I scurried off to some section to get away from everyone, so it was pretty much a mad flee to escape them. I get a text that they’re leaving after a while, so I come down and they are all gathered near the entrance, B and M are blocking the entrance, so we move them along so people can get into the store. Once again, the maddening crawl toward where we park, except this time we stopped to make fun of something, and M takes off down the mall. She’s really hauling, with a purpose, heading for something. I guessed correctly that she was heading for the Godiva kiosk and sure enough she stops there and picks up some chocolates. Now, we were going to pass this kiosk on the way back, so we have no idea why she didn’t just walk with us down the mall and then say “Oh, I’d like to stop and buy something here” and we’d wait for her, she just takes off down the mall without us.
We ended up waiting for her anyway, then we made them walk in front of us the rest of the way back.
Once loaded in the SUV we headed to a shopping plaza and got more Starbucks, then headed to the Whole Foods for stuff to grill that night. It took them 40 questions before they understood that Whole Foods was an organic store, and I really had no idea where they shipped their produce from, even though they asked me 14 times. “Do they ship it from California?” I don’t know. “Berries are out of season, so where do they ship their berries from?” I don’t know.
B and I got into line because he insisted on paying, M stood in front of the exit, blocking people from leaving, J and hubby went outside to get out of the way and have nervous breakdowns. The cashier wasn’t particularly slow or anything, and yet as we left, M announced extremely loudly “was she in training, is that why she’s so slow”. I scurried outside with the bag.
We go home. “So, do they race those horses at the horse farm?” I don’t know.
They get a phone call on their cell, its the guy that’s suppose to fax them stuff for their golf tournament. For the 500th time we give them our fax number, and hubby preps the computer to receive faxes. A half hour passes. An hour passes, no faxes. Just as hubby was about to install the new software on his computer, the phone rings, yep, the faxes. Except the guy can’t hit the send button or who knows what, so for the next two hours the phone rings off the hook while this moron tries to send the faxes, and we can’t call him back to explain AGAIN to just hit the send button when the phone picks up because he’s speed dialing the number to send the faxes. The guy finally gets through and figures out to hit the send button, and we get one fax. Then he calls again to send another fax. Um, shove all of the paper in and send multiple pages... but no, he’s sending one page, hanging up, dialing, sending another page, etc. Each time he tries to send, he seems to forget to hit the freakin send button. M is getting more and more flustered with each ring of the phone, and hubby says “I should just have me grab the faxes downstairs instead of letting the computer pick it up since the guy can’t figure it out”. M immediately runs and tells B that I have the faxes downstairs. I hear someone coming down the stairs, and then go back up the stairs. Meanwhile I’ve grown tired of the constantly ringing phone, so I just intercept the freakin faxes downstairs without realizing what hubby had said. So I walk upstairs with a fax as hubby is explaining to M that I wasn’t getting faxes downstairs but I could if he asked me to. I hand her the fax and she gets this pompous look on her face and says something like “well, I guess they were going downstairs after all” and I grabbed hubby before he could strangle her.
Once again they have salmon and we picked up a steak for me at Whole Foods because I don’t like fish. We’re outside on the deck having a pleasant discussion about nothing in general, wind power I think (good lord) and the food is ready.
I eat my steak with ketchup. Apparently this is not acceptable in the world, despite the fact that people throws A-1, Heinz 57, seared and braised, seasoning and all sorts of manner of other condiments on a steak and that’s perfectly fine. I eat mine with ketchup, have for 40 some years. Frankly I’m a bit sick of people commenting on it, I don’t bitch at them for putting butter on their baked potato, so leave me the F alone. Yes, B makes some snide comment about “ruining” my steak with ketchup. I look at him and say “well, since I pay the mortgage for this house I’ll eat whatever I damn well want on my steak in my own house or anywhere I want actually”. I wanted to say something to the effect that if I felt compelled to wipe my butt with the steak and eat it, its none of his damn business, but toned it down a bit.
After we had all eaten, I went and sat in the kitchen because I knew B and M would follow me there instead of standing in the computer room while J and hubby played their computer game. I had hoped to cull B away from M so I could ask him about his exploding heart that he keeps inferring throughout his visit that this would be the last visit, and I won’t have to worry about that next year because I’ll be DEAD, you know, little hints that something is up but they won’t tell you. It was a battle of wills because M plopped herself down at the table and we had a nice little chat about the seafood place where if you get there before 6pm and order you can get the special:
Well, if you get there before 6pm then you get this wonderful special for 16 dollars and it comes with an appetizer, a salad, then you get 6 shrimp (pronounced srimp) and a small steak and you get dessert, which is absolutely wonderful and there’s some times that we’ll go in there and not be very hungry so we’ll just get one special and I’ll have the srimp and B will have the steak and that’s plenty of food for us, but other times we’ll go and both get the special and then there’s plenty of leftovers (which probably reside in her purse until she’s ready to eat it) to take home and have a very nice meal on those leftovers.
I got to hear how that place bought another piece of land and they’re building a steak house so instead of surf and turf, I’m sure it’ll be turf and surf on the menu (ha ha), and how they weren’t that impressed with some of the new hamburger places and how others just rave about them, but they don’t like the hamburgers there and they think the other hamburger place is so much better. On and on and on and on.
FINALLY M announced that she was going to bed, so I hijacked B to ask him what the scoop was on his exploding heart. The gist is that he’s had several stents put in, and the doctors told him that he had 1-2 years and then things could go bad. This month is the one year anniversary of that announcement, so B feels that at any moment he’ll keel. Ok, so I ask him what he wanted to do with the remaining time and shouldn’t he be doing more to tell his sons how proud of them he is, etc. Well, he wants to help more people, but he doesn’t, and he wished he had done things differently so that his sons could have better lives (um... ok... gee thanks), and generally it was a whole bunch of coulda, woulda, shoulda swimming in lake me and his sons are miserable and aren’t as successful as he’d like because he didn’t take the garbage out on thursdays instead of wednesdays or some stupid crap. In a nutshell, it was pretty much a whole bunch of woe and wishing, but no effort on his part to do anything about it.
He also wished that they would be more interested in the heirlooms that they had, and he was worried that the lamps that his father had given him would end up in the “wrong hands”. Um, excuse me? He didn’t want to give them to J because his wife would give them to her sister and he didn’t want her sister to have them. Um... are ya kidding me?
So, in a nutshell, B is more worried about his heirlooms going to the right place than he is that his sons are worried about him, or that they are happy and successful. He doesn’t think they’re happy or successful enough. Good lord. How do you deal with that?
