36 is too old to travel with your parents

At least, it's too old to travel with my parents. For the most part -- and I will concede this -- it was fine. They paid for the gas, I listened to what I wanted to on the radio. I think that we spent too much time together over the course of five days, on top of eight hours in a car each way. And I like my quiet -- every once in a while, my mother would pop up with a comment that wasn't really a question.

"You did such a nice job on the party."

Hmm..hmm. And then when that response wasn't enough for her, she would repeat the same sentence -- verbatum -- about 30 minutes later. And then again in another hour or two.

But that's not even the best part -- let me rewind to Tuesday night when they arrived in Ithaca. I had to hear about her new diet and how she writes her food down and emails it to her nutritionist every night and she had only eaten 500 calories that day (and you wonder where I get my food and diet issues!). I told her that was way too few, but she seemed to know best.

Wednesday morning, we got up about 4:30 and were on the road by 5:00am. A quick stop at the Wegmans in Wilkes-Barre for breakfast and coffee, and we were on our way to Baltimore. We made it to the Museum about 10:15 (I drove about 3 to 5 mph slower than I normally do, thus adding about 15 to 25 minutes onto my usual time). When we got there, Mike was waiting in the lobby for me (my friend had told him I was due there at any moment). So I played nice with my former boss, and my friend Johnny Z chatted with my parents. Out of the corner of my eye and with one ear, I could sense some Fran drama (light-headedness, got up too fast, I'm fine now). I ignored it and continued talking to Mike. Then we toured the Museum.

At the end, in the gift shop, Fran asked where the bathroom was. I pointed her in the right direction and talked to other former co-workers. We were still chatting when my mother came back from the bathroom, told my dad she wasn't feeling well and promptly fainted. And I had to catch her. She came to within a minute or so and we sat her in a chair, someone got her water, I went out to the car to get her an apple and some candy.

And there we sat for another 30 minutes. Z teased me about my Swedish fish and sour patch kids -- "you and your candy on long drives." I kept looking at the time -- I wanted to get to Richmond. And I knew my mother was fine -- that she had been eating 500 calories (at best, I'm guessing) for at least the past week. Her ass was about to go to a drive through and eat some grease.

And so, after the always lovely and congested trip across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (35 minutes to go five miles -- and then miraculously no traffic on the other side, it just disappears), we stopped in Fairfax and got Wendy's. She slept a little in the back seat, I talked on my cell phone with my sister-in-law in code, and my father looked out the window, and occassionally turned around to check on my mom. I was more worried about him being worried.

We made it to Richmond with no other crisis. She went upstairs to take a nap, I set my father up in front of the TV to watch soccer, and I made myself a drink (diet cherry pepsi and run -- yum!) and started making sauce and meatballs for dinner the next night, and marinating the chicken for dinner that night.

I wish I could say that was all the drama for the weekend, but alas, we had a whole other set of grandparents arriving the next night. Another mother as wacky as mine can be, and another father who can be just as cranky as mine.

I'm off to shower and sleep for my first day back to work tomorrow...the weekend is to be continued.