backlog of news

ok, finally i have time and energy to do a post on my vacation and seeing my parents again. starting from the start. friday night:
i prayed for a traffic jam the whole way to o'hare and got caught up for 2 miles, not quite enough to save me so i was at the airport an hour early. maya gave me a call at 6:45, now i know it was this time because i kept clock watching and said at 6:45 i will allow myself to go outside for my last cigarette until i am on my way home from seeing my parents. so that passed enough time to see me standing at the main exit doors waiting for my parents to appear. now, if you don't know, in america you can't go and wait for anyone at their gate, i know in international flights in aus you have to wait behind the doors but in america you wait down in the baggage claim and everyone getting off a plane comes through down there. depending on where in the terminal they are there is a possibility of coming out of three different doors and you have to remember to be in the right terminal, there are 3 domestic terminals at o'hare alone. so i was waiting at the main doors. for ages. and ages. and i'm keeping an eye out on the baggage carosel where i said i'd meet them if for some reason we didn't catch one another at the doors. then i saw a head that looks like my dad's, then my mum's and they were walking in the opposite direction, so you know what i did? i ran to them. quite nicely i might add. so yes, we were all happy and excited to see one another and they commented on how lovely i looked etc etc and we had a fine night. almost ran out of gas on the way home and went to the filthiest toilet EVER (in a gas station ran by an indian, says everything, that race is filthy. i'm not racist, i've just had enough experience to know the men at least are disgusting). i was still shuddering in the car at the thought of it an hour later.
this is going to be a long post isn't it? i haven't even left for my vacation yet.
saturday:
as you know pat drove me downtown and did i mention the water heater breaking on the friday night when i got home? yeah i noticed some weird noise when i got home wasn't gonna do shit about it ither but thought i wouldn't be able to sleep with it so went and woke pat. so that excitement ocured and i hadn't showered since thursday by the time i saw my parents. i was feeling pretty gross, especially because of the filthy toilet. dad was sick and so we chilled out in the room. i showed them all my new clothes. mum gave me pics to see and then we got dressed and went to navy pier. they were impressed with the fireworks. i didn't take any pictures this time. noticed at this point my dad's controlling-ness which i'd forgotten. doesn't like me to know more than he. also mum made a good example of why proper walking shoes are a good idea if working. not much had changed.
sunday:
it was a rainy day but we set out to go see millenium park via walgreens. turns out my parents love walgreens. it's a pharmacy/mini mart/make up counter/souvenir shop. anything really, walgreens is like a one stop shop. so they bought up big with souveniers. then we cauht a cab downtown and to the bean. mum and dad liked it. we went to old navy to try and find dad some shorts and mum some clothes. she got a whole new outfit, the shoes were the most important thing because she needed something that wouldn't hurt her feet. they were getting in their fall clothes so dad couldn't get shorts. after this we got on a train and seperated. dad went to the cubs game and mum and i went to connect to another train and go to armitage ave to go shopping in a nice part of town. mum was pretty tired herself so we had lunch in a funky little pub/bar (it had a pub atmosphere to it). we looked at a few shops and mum bought me some paper for my scrapbooking then we went to a 7eleven for mum to get stuff and we caught a cab bakc to the hotel cause mum was so tired. i was grateful cause i was exhausted myself. we had a nap in the arvo.
monday:
flew southwest which was a pretty good airline. basic but decent leg room, big enough seats and open seating, so sit wherever you can get a seat. sat next to a turkish woman who i think assumed my parents to be rich and possible buyers of a turkish condo. dunno. she invited me to stay with her in spain. i think she'll be dead before i've enough money to do that one. picked up the rental car, couldn't be put on as an additional driver, i needed to be down as the main driver, dad didn't think of that so i couldn't drive. but got gps, nifty little tool that is. this is the day my parents really bugged me. or started to. my mum's little catty outbursts/tantrums on this day saw the three of us hardly speaking. nightmare. the hotel in memphis was alright, definitely not as plush at the whitehall in chicago but good enough. we went to sun studios this afternoon. they use it as a recording studio today. for those if who who don't know the importance of sun studios it was the first place where elvis, johnny cash and jerry lee lewis recorded their first songs and records. since re-opening u2 have recorded there as well as heaps of other bands. very cool place. go there if you're in memphis. there's only three things worth seeing in memphis, that, beale street and graceland. we did beale street that night had dinner in a pub/bar, can't remember the name. then went back to the hotel where i called angelika and said i am going to extend, my parents are driving me crazy.
tuesday:
went to the peabody hotel first to see the ducks march through the lobby and into the pond. very cute. then we headed for graceland. oh my gosh. what a place. so tacky. the guy had very interesting taste in decortating... the second level can't be accessed as the family still own it and use for holiday's, plus the bathroom where elvis died is up there also. it was pretty cool to see all his stuff, plus the jungle room and all his cars. the basement was my favourite place, his record room was the best. after graceland we went in search of a mall and found a department store called dillards where mum and dad had a ball and i just wanted to sit down and rest. my dad mak three bad remakrs to me that afternoon so i was in no mood to eat, so i didn't and went to put in a mood.
wednesday:
spn the day in the car driving. by this point in time dad had almost veered off the road a couple of times, have been driving on the other side of the road and just generlaly making me nervous. we stopped at a 'collectors' store in some backwater town in alabama and oh my god, i thought i was going to see an extra head grow out of the guy who worked there. he was wearing a grubby general lee t-shirt and coke bottle glasses. weirdo. we stayed in the embassay suites in atlanta which were very nice. had the best breakfast! this was also the day that my memory card fucked up. pat has takn it away with her this weekend for one of her collegues to play with and see if my photos can be salvaged.
thursday:
we went to stone mountain. the only thing i saw of atlanta apart from the skyline. there's an engraving on the mountain of the confederate president jefferson davis, general robert e. lee and lt. general thomas "stonewall" jackson. now i'll copy and paste the info on how big the carving is: The entire carved surface of the Memorial Carving measures three acres, larger than a football field. The carving of the three men towers 400 feet above the ground, measures 90 by 190 feet, and is recessed 42 feet into the mountain. The deepest point of the carving is at Lee's elbow, which is 12 feet to the mountain's surface. that afternoon we got caught in rain and had to wait a while before i ran to get the car then i was soaked and sat in the car waiting for mum and dad, had to have the air going to dry dad's seat from me being so wet.
friday:
we headed to chattanooga in the morning after another fantastic breakfast and got to the hotel early. mum and dad had to do laundry so i watched tv. then we went to lunch and out to the chatanooga national cemetery. mum and dad enjoyed that, i felt like i'd seen it before as it was like arlington on a smaller scale. was weird though, they'd obviously just had burials as there were two fresh graves with the flowers on and one of the families arrived while mum and dad were down that way to collect the cards off the grave. after that we went to the battlefield. now i can't quite remember the name of it, if it even had a name, but it was a very strange place. all over the place were monuments, dotted on the hills, alongside the road, anywhere somthing occured. but the strangest thing was it didn't look like the trees had advanced in all the years since the civil war so you could imagine the armies hiding in the trees and then charging onto the grass to fight. hard to explain without doing a diagram or seeing the pics. we went to a cool pub that night, the hair of the dog, we all got a t-shirt there. if you're ever in chattanooga that's where i recommend you go.
saturday:
headed to nashville and detoured along the way to visit the jack daniels distillery still in operation in lynchburg, tn. now that was orth the detour. there's just over 300 people in the town and it thrives on the distillery. the gift shop wasn't even on the premises, was in the main part of town. now if that don't show you the not so capitalistic attitude of those people then i don't know what does. the tour was great, thank god i wasn't driving as the fumes alone, plus walking up and down stairs and in and out of buildings had me feeling a bit woozy. we went into the town and mum bought some stuff and dad and i got t-shirts and we had lunch there. from here we got back on the raod and continued to nashville. i thought this room smelt. i didn't like this hotel at all. it was called the club inn or something. the ladies at reception got us tickets to the grand ol' opry to see some show going on but it wasn't until 9:30 so we went into the opry mills there, a big mall, where enroute to locate a bathroom for mum she found a store all about apples. by this time i was so tired i was struggling to speak or remember things. so i was like a sheep trying to breka out and myself my own patch of grass but struggling to so just followed the herd. we had dinner at tony roma's, nice place, good food, recommend it. after this we went over to go in for our show. it was like a live show to the audience, but they were obviously filming for a tv show or a radio show because when the program would have ads, we would. we only lasted til 11, we were wiped and due to the england thing with the psychos planning to bomb a plane we had to be at the airport 2 hours early so we left.
sunday:
flew back to chicago, so nice to be home. i drove mum and dad around, showed them places and then came home. was going to see a movie with kellie and rodolfo but they didn't get there in time so i met them back in gurnee and went to starbucks.
and that's it. the week after spending all my time with my parents was better because we ad our seperate things to do. they were very impressed to see me handle three kids and not only that, but see that the kids and i like one another a lot!
mum loved the u.s so much she's planning another trip over in a couple of years. she also seemed fine about the chance of me extending on, not only that, but commented several times about how great it would be if i married an american because then she'd get free accommodation and home cooked meals. extending for another 6-9 months is a bit different to staying forever!
dad caught the shopping bug but they managed to have space to take home my souvenir stuff and books that i'd got in d.c.
so yes, i did have more fun times than bad times, it wasn't a horrible trip and i was grateful for not paying for hardly a thing. on top of that i think they're going to give me (i said i'd pay them back even though mum said no) money to book my november trip. now if it sounds like they were happy about doing so then please don't think that. mum wasn't going dad, i knew dad was cause he'd already mentioned it. but i didn't ask for it. that's the thing. and i was under the impression they'd leave without telling me they'd give it to me so again, i am truly grateful for that because otherwise lozz might have been doing nyc by herself (lozz -this was part of a new plan that i hadn't told you about because i was still trying to work it out... don't freak out).
now tonight i have my first class at college and i'm just cooking my dinner. i'm also sick for the first time in two and a bit months and feeling pretty crappy. pat has gone to dallas for a conference and i was alone with the kids last night. tonight they're at their greg's and his parents place and tomorrow i'll pick them up again and be alone with them again until wednesday when her mum comes to help out. so that's it for the time being. this has been a big post. i tried to keep it short. sorry!