When Mom Comes to Town

A friendly update: Today's Global Vegetarian Bar at the International Table is...

Ireland.

Uh-huh. Turnips and Chive Champs and Veggie Irish Stew and Cabbage. I have no words. The French mocked me less for being a vegetarian than the Irish. Whatever.

So, Mom came to town for over a week and we had a lovely time. No fighting. Maybe a little minor snapping, but no fighting. Which was excellent. We love each other and we really like each other too. But for some reason we tend to fight a lot when spending several days in almost constant company. Because I believe myself to be nearly perfect I like to pretend that it is mostly her fault. But, obviously it's just as much mine. And probably most of it is because we're strong personalities who believe we're perfect and are also people who mostly live alone (she has the husband and I have the frequent houseguests) and thus don't have to share space too often. Who knows. This visit we behaved beautifully and had a nice time together. Except when I broke her and then she broke me. With the rich food eating and late night partying.

Thursday was mellow. And then Friday I took her out on date night with Muffy & Steph. But first dragged her into Manhattan for lunch with Rock Star Fran and some coworkers for RSF's farewell lunch before her whirlwind European tour. Both events were lovely but, the combination of a rich lunch, a rich dinner, late night lattes, too much recent plane travel (she got home from a Norwegian Cruise less than a week before she left to come to New York) and a very late night all conspired to make her tummy VERY unhappy Saturday morning. So, I spent the morning & early afternoon putzing and wishing I could do more while she spent it alternating between napping and feeling like the devil. Poor Mommy. She wouldn't let me hold her hair or get her a cool cloth or anything. Because I think Mommies are just that way or something. She DID let me go out and get her saltines and 7up though. I think she mostly did that so I would stop annoying her with my need to do something for her. Not sure. So, we mostly stayed in that weekend. Which was nice. Lots of TV watching, doing little chores here and there, reading, napping, playing with the kitties and shopping for Valentine's Day cards for that always awesome Daddy o'Mine.

Monday was Jake's night. Mom loves their cornbread and brisket and mac & cheese and such (even though she apparently did not learn her lesson from Friday night no one got sick from our feeding extravaganza). I introduced her to the show Everwood that night over brisket. Which she loved. And may start watching. Though we did start to fight over one of the way too young stars of the show and that can't be healthy. Can it?

Tuesday was TARCON6. Which was excellent. Vader and Taylor joined us for the fun. We grabbed dinner at Galaxy Diner just in case the food situation was as miserable as it was last season. And then headed to MSG.

I do love The Amazing Race. I think it's a phenomenal show and my favorite reality show ever, even if I don't agree with some of the changes they've made to it recently. But I do find it kind of odd to fawn over reality show stars. And can't really get all that excited about meeting them. You know? And despite the fact that I am a total dork in my own right, I do sometimes find myself sucked into thinking about the cliche of a bunch of folks obsessing over a reality show in an online forum. A lot of them are fabulous people (though, as in any situation with a large number of people, a lot of them are not). The recapper for the show is brilliant as are most of the people associated with Television Without Pity. But stepping back and looking at it in a general way, it's one of the more dorky things out there. Which is my way of trying to nicely say that my favorite part of TARCon is watching all the nuttier folks at the event get smashed and slobber on the racers. I'm a bad, bad person. And I love to people watch. And I'm petty and snarky and evil. So, this kind of event is so perfect for me.

The party started out with all of us watching the finale, and that's almost as much fun as the people watching. Free beers and a few hundred people who love the show hanging out in a bar laughing and moaning and booing and having fun. It's really pretty cool. And it was nice having a few hundred people booing along with me at the bad outcome of the race when the annoying team barely squeaked by the awesome team. It made the episode a little less fun than it would have been otherwise. Because I loved it aside from the ending. They went to Hawai'i and stayed there for a while. Long enough for Mom and I to identify every place they went, babble about all the times we'd been to such and such a place and cackle like freaks when one of the contestants was unable to pronounce Kalakaua. Because we're weird.

Then Mom and Taylor went out for a smoke (Taylor to smoke and Mom to long for the days of smoking). Vader and I stayed to drink more. Our foursome actually ended up working really well. Vader and I wandered out to the entrance area to do what we did last season, which was sit around mocking everyone and having fun. But quietly. To ourselves. So no one else could hear us. Because while I'm mean, I don't want to actually hurt anyone's feelings. I don't think. Not like that. We also kept waiting for Mom and Taylor to return. Eventually we realized they had and were in the receiving line waiting for the racers. So we wished them well, got them drinks and then hit the bar to avoid the massive crowds and drink ourselves silly. We learned last season that if you sit by the bar, most of the racers will eventually end up standing next to you anyway. That's how we got a former winner's picture with Ed's Shirt. Heh.

We did get to see a lot of racers. Particularly this one guy, Aaron. Vader got her photo taken with him while I was in the bathroom. And I can't blame her. He's gorgeous. Seriously. He kept catching me staring at him as I was planning our wedding together in my mind. Because the man is just painfully pretty. And I am so, so shallow when it comes to boys. Well, I like smart boys too. A smart boy who is ridiculously pretty could pretty much make me his bitch for life. I'm so sad. Anyway. Met him briefly. Took some photos of Taylor with last season's winners Chip & Kim and this season's third place team, Adam and Rebecca. Chatted with Rebecca's dad and drank a lot. And watched my Mom have as much fun people watching as I do. She wandered all over taking photos of racers, goggling at the strangeness and having a blast. I love the families of the teams. They just kinda stand there wondering what the hell all these people are freaking out over. My family would be that way. "This is just Amanda. Really. No need to make a fuss over her. We like her, but we have to as she's family. She's really just a big doof. No, you don't need to buy her a drink. Really. Do NOT encourage the ego."

I did get a little excited about the favorite team of the race, Kris & Jon. They played beautifully for the most part and behaved really well and I was definitely rooting for them. But I had nothing to say to them beyond, "Great Race, Loved You!" So I just took Vader's picture with them and made faces at the the crazy drunk people pushing her out of the way so they could fawn. Heh. Crazy drunk people. Taylor abandoned us at some point and finally Vader, Mom and I had enough and decided to head out as well. And I got Mom home after 3AM. Because I'm a bad daughter and keep my Mom out to all hours all the time. I hope her cardiologist doesn't find out. Heh. Though she is apparently the model heart patient and probably has a healthier heart than me at this point.

Anyway, it was a good time and I'm so glad Mom was there for it. Now if only we can get Dad out here for TARCON7.

Wednesday I called in sick and was hungover and tired most of the day. So I napped and Mom putzed and we watched TV and were a little sluglike. Though I think Mom went out for a walk at one point.

Thursday I took mom to see a dance performance of the company that Muppet works with. Parts of it were interesting, but I did not love it. I've seen this company do stuff with flour that I liked and I didn't like the flour so much in this one. And I didn't love the pacing either. But two of the dancers spent half their time tied together at the hair and parts of their dance I really found interesting. Mom did not hate it, but said she wouldn't see it again. And there you have my lovely review. Why am I not a dance critic? I do not understand.

Friday was home in the comfy pants eating risotto and mozzarella sandwiches. Awesome time. Though when I made Mom watch The Road to Stardom with Missy Elliot (awesome show) she did a rap that still kinda gives me nightmares.

Saturday I had to go to a Board Meeting of Doom at Wesleyan. Mom opted to stay home. I was bummed as I wanted more time to hang with her. But I think she made the right choice. We got the car an hour and a half late as they didn't have one for us at time. Then we ran into a fuel spill and Steph had to do some mad creative driving which involved exiting an on ramp. But it all worked out and we made it in time for the meeting. Barely.

The meeting was okay and we had some fun times catching up with people. And Charlotte, Muffy & Steph are lovely folks to have around for a roadtrip. But Mom would've been bored for most of the day.

Saturday night was Ocean's 11 and Thai Food at Muffy & Steph's. Though first Mom had us watch the video from her Norway trip, kind of against my will. I am a shitty daughter. The video was okay, but I think I liked the way the photos turned out better. I got more of a sense of the pretty in the photos than in the video. Though I guess we saw more of the ship in the video. Anyway, Muffy liked that and Mom was glad I got to see it. And then I was allowed to drool over Brad Pitt for a couple of hours and all was right with the world.

Sunday I sent Mom packing and then spent the day napping like a slug.

This is how the girls in my family party. I know you're jealous. Our rock star lives.