Written 2004-11-24 22:04
Nov. 25th, 2004 06:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishJust had a very nice bath, so I'm feeling better than I was before. My back still aches a bit from three nights on the bed in Casa de Sketchy but that will pass, Especially since we've moved on from Hoxie, into Helena [pron. like the chick whose face launches ships, with an "uh" at the end of it], passing through or by such towns as Imboden [EMM-boh-d'n, Powhatan [POW-hat'n], and Braggadocio. Hey, at least Arkansas makes up its own place names. [Braggadocio is really in Missouri, but whatever.]
Things at Grandmother & Granddad's got better after the first night: fewer people, mostly, but also the shock of being back had worn off. I think I froze my mental image of both of them [all four grandparents, really] when I was around fifteen, so it's a bit of a shock to see Grandmother with mostly grey hair and a bit dumpy, or Granddad's formerly-grey hair gone to white and all over the place, and his face as wrinkled as it is. His face just lights up whenever he smiles, though, which he did frequently at Kylie and occasionally at the rest of us. And the house itself hasn't changed much in six years, so there's a dissonance between the space and its residents. It all got sorted out quickly enough, and I was able to, well, sit and fade into the background. Read plays for Playwriting. That sort of thing.
Good food and lots of it for every meal: big breakfasts with eggs & biscuits & sausage, barbecue sandwiches, tons of Thanksgiving dinner leftovers. Played a lot of Transamerica with Jamie and Mom; should've brought something else, too. Hit a flea market on Tuesday and acquired a stack of sci-fi paperbacks, including John M. Ford's Star Trek novel How Much For Just the Planet? and a first edition of Wrede & Stevermer's Sorcery and Cecilia, to complement the hardback I have buried in a box somewhere. Went to Wal-Mart more times than I can count.
It sounds like I'm leaving the grandparents out of the trip. That's mostly because they left themselves out of it. Grandmother cooked, and tagged along on the antique store & flea market trips, and puttered other than that; Granddad watched TV a lot. Everyone played with Kylie but that's not really something I find thrilling to write about. So, yeah.
Casa de Sketchy managed to get progressively less classy as the days went by. The second night featured parking-lot rednecks, while on the third night the guy next door threw up for probably half an hour. Words cannot express my relief when we drove away Wednesday morning.
So, now we're in Helena, staying at a Best Western, with a bathtub and good beds. [I will never mock hotel beds again, for at least the next six months.] It also claims to have wifi in the lobby downstairs, so I'll have to check that out tomorrow. Cell phone is in Extended Area, meaning that calls cost me big bucks, so no phone posts. Unless the wifi in the lobby doesn't work out. Then I'll start considering it.
I have a ton of thoughts colliding about being at Pop's place as well but they can wait. They need to incubate for a bit. Or maybe I just don't want to think about them too hard right now.
[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]
Things at Grandmother & Granddad's got better after the first night: fewer people, mostly, but also the shock of being back had worn off. I think I froze my mental image of both of them [all four grandparents, really] when I was around fifteen, so it's a bit of a shock to see Grandmother with mostly grey hair and a bit dumpy, or Granddad's formerly-grey hair gone to white and all over the place, and his face as wrinkled as it is. His face just lights up whenever he smiles, though, which he did frequently at Kylie and occasionally at the rest of us. And the house itself hasn't changed much in six years, so there's a dissonance between the space and its residents. It all got sorted out quickly enough, and I was able to, well, sit and fade into the background. Read plays for Playwriting. That sort of thing.
Good food and lots of it for every meal: big breakfasts with eggs & biscuits & sausage, barbecue sandwiches, tons of Thanksgiving dinner leftovers. Played a lot of Transamerica with Jamie and Mom; should've brought something else, too. Hit a flea market on Tuesday and acquired a stack of sci-fi paperbacks, including John M. Ford's Star Trek novel How Much For Just the Planet? and a first edition of Wrede & Stevermer's Sorcery and Cecilia, to complement the hardback I have buried in a box somewhere. Went to Wal-Mart more times than I can count.
It sounds like I'm leaving the grandparents out of the trip. That's mostly because they left themselves out of it. Grandmother cooked, and tagged along on the antique store & flea market trips, and puttered other than that; Granddad watched TV a lot. Everyone played with Kylie but that's not really something I find thrilling to write about. So, yeah.
Casa de Sketchy managed to get progressively less classy as the days went by. The second night featured parking-lot rednecks, while on the third night the guy next door threw up for probably half an hour. Words cannot express my relief when we drove away Wednesday morning.
So, now we're in Helena, staying at a Best Western, with a bathtub and good beds. [I will never mock hotel beds again, for at least the next six months.] It also claims to have wifi in the lobby downstairs, so I'll have to check that out tomorrow. Cell phone is in Extended Area, meaning that calls cost me big bucks, so no phone posts. Unless the wifi in the lobby doesn't work out. Then I'll start considering it.
I have a ton of thoughts colliding about being at Pop's place as well but they can wait. They need to incubate for a bit. Or maybe I just don't want to think about them too hard right now.
[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]
no subject
Date: 2004-11-26 08:46 pm (UTC)