I do in Ohio that I don’t do at home:
1. Drink Kroger coffee, the pre-ground kind, from a can.
2. Watch television. I have seen more episodes of the various incarnations of CSI and Law and Order than I care to enumerate.
3. Read catalogs featuring items like this and this.
4. Snoop around the basement. This trip, among the things I’ve found: daguerrotypes of relatives, several of my great-grandfather’s contractor badges, more of my grandmother’s jewelry, and my grandmother’s high school yearbook, which reveals that in 1937, they were still performing minstrel shows. Shiver.
5. Contemplate my parents’ and my own mortality. No, wait, I do that at home, too.
Y’all: if you don’t live with your parents, what do you do when you visit them that you don’t do at home?
sdn
November 29, 2005 at 1:57 ami go to ihop!
i find csi and l&o oddly relaxing.
kenllama
November 29, 2005 at 1:58 am::Y’all: if you don’t live with your parents, what do you do when you visit them that you don’t do at home?::
I’m curious to find out. I’ve not been to visit my parents in a few years, and I’ll be there for a few days next month. It’s usually holiday-related, which skews things a bit. The two things that stand out from the last trip:
* scrabble (oh, how i wish i had a scrabble-buddy here…)
* trip to Broadway
The former is more representative than the latter.
How much longer will you be in Ohio? I didn’t realize you’d be here for this long. I had been intending to try to catch up with you this weekend, and it’s just as well that I forgot to arrange it: last week was pretty tumultuous for me and I really needed the weekend to sift through it all and settle down some. Will you still be around on Saturday? I expect not, but if you are I’d love to catch up with you. We missed you at the IPL-shindig in September.
nevikmoore
November 29, 2005 at 2:07 amI want that first toilet seat. That is AY!-MAY!-ZING!
Oh, and, to answer your question: Talk to my mother.
alevai
November 29, 2005 at 2:54 amY’all: if you don’t live with your parents, what do you do when you visit them that you don’t do at home?
Whine. Also, eat food that isn’t take-out. And, incredibly, watch more episodes of the various incarnations of CSI and Law and Order than I care to enumerate. :p Don’t fight the addiction, my dear. It’s easier to just accept it and let Grissom show you the light.
erce
November 29, 2005 at 3:03 amI guess the trip back to visit my Grandmother after my Grandfather’s death is the closest I ever plan to get to “visiting my parents” and here’s 5 things I did while there:
1. Have breakfast at Waffle House. and Sir Weasel.
2. Get that unsettled feeling everytime I realized that I knew where in town I was, but that the landmarks were gone or abandoned like the movie theater that I spent my teen years referring to as the new one which was in the process of being bulldozed. Sigh, and that was the theater I saw Jurrassic Park at with
3. Poke around the house and find little pencil cases holding tiny nubs from what appeared to be every crayon I owned as a child and the family portraits I drew as a budding 4 year old artist with a Sir Marks Alot were still on the backsides of the game cabinet doors.
4. Realize that the house strangely seemed smaller than I remembered, but was still f-ing huge.
5. Worry that my Grandmother won’t live much longer and also contemplate my aging and how my son will view me as he grows up.
moriath
November 29, 2005 at 3:19 amHole myself up in my room and sleep a lot so I can go back to school quicker :-P
I guess my results are kind of skewed because I’m usually forced home – during the holidays and then the 2 months when I’m not taking classes at school, thus can’t live out here.
I actually watch less Law & Order (SVU all the way for me) at home. My mom is easily disturbed and tries to dictate my TV watching at home. Very irritating.
anonymous
November 29, 2005 at 4:38 am1. Eat food cooked in a microwave.
2. Read Reader’s Digest.
3. Wonder what’s going to go first- my mom’s mind or my dad’s heart.
4. Freeze my butt off (the cheapest blankets are chep for a reason!)
-Jeff C.
jennekirby
November 29, 2005 at 4:50 amI watch TV, and order delivery food, and go to the mall. I also watch movies I’ve seen lots of times before and use my laptop on my lap instead of on a desk.
Oh yeah, and use my inhaler incessantly.
anonymous
November 29, 2005 at 6:39 am1) Drink Maxwell house coffee. I generally have to go to an area starbucks to get decent coffee
2) Watch cable tv – I can never get enough of “Animal Planet”
3) Go to a Mets game
4) Watch sports on tv
5) Talk with my siblings
6) Eat junk food NON STOP. My mom always buys lots of cookies, other junk food. She does make some of my favorite food that I never make, like chicken croquettes, sauerbrauten and stuffed cabbage.
7) I start to talk with a Jersey accent. I have to resist the urge to tease my hair too.
Arasin
indulgent_el
November 29, 2005 at 7:00 am1) read crap novels incessantly
2) overeat. no, like binge eat.
3) act like an ornry teenager.
capn_jil
November 29, 2005 at 8:00 amFor me these days visiting home is a big all-in-one family, friends, pets, and the location itself as well as a bonus ladyfriend to the west. So I come home and get all misty and weepy about the valley and how I’m totally moving back into the hills when I’m old (lie?), catch up with all my weird high school friends, play with the cat and ostentatiously ignore the dog but mostly just watch cable TV like it’s God’s gift to man (hint IT IS)
alisgray
November 29, 2005 at 10:28 amwhen I visit my stepmother’s home in upstate NY, I take long walks in the country with her. and eat sparingly of the extremely high fiber food she makes. and look at the often regrettable pieces of my high school-era art that’s kept framed. and wonder what it’ll be like to have to divide up the rest of my parents’ furniture that she’s still using when she’s done with it. usually it’s cold in the house. sometimes we sing mournful German Christmas carols around the candle-lit Weinachtsbaum. (If it’s that time of year, I mean.)
anonymous
November 29, 2005 at 12:10 pmFor the empress of the World…appx. when will the sequel come out??..and will i be able to buy it at chapters??…e-mail is xxwydxx@yahoo.com.tw ..thanx^^
vj_pdx
November 29, 2005 at 10:51 pmI am so envious that you have a basement to snoop around in. My mom’s side of the family seem to be allergic to having interesting basements full of stuff, though my dad’s parents had a great basement. I remember especially their huge trunks, which appeared to be made out of a heavy cardboard. I wonder what happened to all of that. My cousins probably have it all.
I too drink bad coffee at Mom’s. I watch way too much TV, all of which seems to be designed to make you afraid to leave the house (courtTV, lifetime, FoxNews). We go to Walmart, and if I’m lucky, we go to Penneys. I eat a lot of drive-through fast food. And sometimes, we drive an hour or two to shop or have lunch in another town–that’s the best. No really, it is.
thisisnotanlj
November 30, 2005 at 2:28 amwe leave on saturday, alas. but we’ll be back in the spring…
how was the shindig? i thought about going, but spain plus this trip left me without vacation time.
thisisnotanlj
November 30, 2005 at 2:29 amno problem! the sequel will be out sometime next year, if all goes well. and if you were able to find empress at chapters, i think the new book will be there, too…if not, maybe they can special order it?