The weekend is over.
The weekend is over. We returned last night. There were regular moments of pleasant amongst the other moments, like wandering around the covered bridge (see other post), and some of the Friday and Saturday evening festivities. Sunday morning's brunch proved useful as much as anything.
Allentown, one of many places I would never have thought I'd be going. However, it turns out there's some interesting stuff there and thereabouts. We also discovered a Turkish store/halal butcher/restaurant. We did not buy the giant tins of pre-grilled and peeled eggplant or the one of olives, although I was tempted. I do, however, have a big old chunk of pistachio halva. I also discovered that my father likes Turkish delight. Who knew. The food at the restaurant was yummy, too.
Even my dad got annoying at me at one point during the weekend, and I'm pretty pissed about it, but I think he listened to me and stopped being stupid. He was in a lot of pain and my mom was my mom, so there was that, but he still was way off. Of course, the reason we did not simply leave directly from the brunch on Sunday and come home that night was because my niece supposedly had indicated she wanted to spend time with my parents.
It turns out she told her mom (my sister) that since she had another day off for mid-semester break she wanted to shop for jeans and do some studying and go back on Monday, not Sunday. This translated through my sister and my mother into my niece wanted to spend time with my parents and could we stay an extra day? This left my dad wondering why we were staying for them to spend time with him and my mom since they weren't spending time with him and my mom.
So my sister and niece and mom stayed at the brunch until 3pm, then they dropped my mom at the hotel and went to the mall 30+ minutes away (it had to be that one for Reasons). At 5 pm my mom decides to orchestrate happy family dinner scenario and can only text but not call my sister and niece at the mall. When she finally reaches them, they say they will not be back until 6:30pm, which is later than my dad needs to eat. P.S. turns out later that my dad told my mom before she started all of this that he either wanted to nibble on snacks in the hotel room or go to the diner across the street. After much drama and a lot of driving thither and yon, we all end up at the diner across the street at 7pm with most of us deeply unamused. Yay, Happy Family Time!
Oh, and since I was sharing a room with my sister and niece, I was privy to my niece doing some growing up, which I applaud. This does not mean she was always in the right, she's a teenager, but she was definitely asserting herself to my sister (her mom). My sister doesn't like this. Which led to a burning need on my part for hot chocolate downstairs in the hotel breakfast room Sunday night because actual screaming fights do not lend themselves to my sleeping. I eventually came back and my sister had, it turns out, gone over to my parents room where I gather she proceeded to impair my father's ability to sleep by talking to my mother for a few hours, before she came back and perforce impinged on my sleeping because she watched TV for a while to calm herself further so she could sleep.
Awesome.
Otoh, there were some fun people to hang out with Friday night and Saturday night. There were also nice people on Sunday morning, but I was kind of fried at that point, so I'd have been all for doing what almost everyone else was doing, which was stopping in, eating, chatting, and leaving. There were some particularly entertaining individuals, one of whom I privately nicknamed The Situation for more parallels than you can imagine. The music selection and dancing Saturday night were surprisingly great.
Other highlights Saturday night were the firefighters. Oh, yes. There are pictures, although I haven't gotten them downloaded yet. Seems the alarm system was a little sensitive in the museum's kitchen and some of the hot oil smoked a bit and deafness ensued. As for the food, the made to order spring rolls were great, and the rest was a tragicomedy of errors.
There were some appetizers when the event started at 6:30pm, and supposedly the dinner stations were supposed to be available at 7:30. However, the one member of the hosting pair ran around telling the caterers not to start serving because everyone had to be there for the speechifying and opening dancing and whatever. By the time someone else clued in, it was 8:30. Thus, the food did not appear until 9pm. And it was mediocre and had people standing in long lines.
Fortunately, there was a whole separate kids set up that included for real take out pizza from a local pizza place. Also mac and cheese and chicken fingers. Many an adult realized this and cannibalized the kids stuff. I suspect the pizza was not as good as it seemed at the time, but I was quite hungry and pretty annoyed, like many others. Don't worry, there was plenty for the kids. Had there been anything besides wine and some beer and some woodchuck, it would have mitigated anyone caring that there was no food. Alas. Turns out later that the caterers got so discombobulated that they also ended up serving the wrong food of what they eventually served, per one of the hosts.
Oh, well. The food Friday night and Saturday morning and Sunday morning were very good and those parts of things went as planned for everyone. Additionally, we are assured my niece has been returned to college and is alive and well and my sister is back in Ann Arbor, presumably dealing with her co-dependency, or whatever the correct term should be. I am wondering if I should try prilosec, as I've never taken it but it seems like it might be appropriate.
Allentown, one of many places I would never have thought I'd be going. However, it turns out there's some interesting stuff there and thereabouts. We also discovered a Turkish store/halal butcher/restaurant. We did not buy the giant tins of pre-grilled and peeled eggplant or the one of olives, although I was tempted. I do, however, have a big old chunk of pistachio halva. I also discovered that my father likes Turkish delight. Who knew. The food at the restaurant was yummy, too.
Even my dad got annoying at me at one point during the weekend, and I'm pretty pissed about it, but I think he listened to me and stopped being stupid. He was in a lot of pain and my mom was my mom, so there was that, but he still was way off. Of course, the reason we did not simply leave directly from the brunch on Sunday and come home that night was because my niece supposedly had indicated she wanted to spend time with my parents.
It turns out she told her mom (my sister) that since she had another day off for mid-semester break she wanted to shop for jeans and do some studying and go back on Monday, not Sunday. This translated through my sister and my mother into my niece wanted to spend time with my parents and could we stay an extra day? This left my dad wondering why we were staying for them to spend time with him and my mom since they weren't spending time with him and my mom.
So my sister and niece and mom stayed at the brunch until 3pm, then they dropped my mom at the hotel and went to the mall 30+ minutes away (it had to be that one for Reasons). At 5 pm my mom decides to orchestrate happy family dinner scenario and can only text but not call my sister and niece at the mall. When she finally reaches them, they say they will not be back until 6:30pm, which is later than my dad needs to eat. P.S. turns out later that my dad told my mom before she started all of this that he either wanted to nibble on snacks in the hotel room or go to the diner across the street. After much drama and a lot of driving thither and yon, we all end up at the diner across the street at 7pm with most of us deeply unamused. Yay, Happy Family Time!
Oh, and since I was sharing a room with my sister and niece, I was privy to my niece doing some growing up, which I applaud. This does not mean she was always in the right, she's a teenager, but she was definitely asserting herself to my sister (her mom). My sister doesn't like this. Which led to a burning need on my part for hot chocolate downstairs in the hotel breakfast room Sunday night because actual screaming fights do not lend themselves to my sleeping. I eventually came back and my sister had, it turns out, gone over to my parents room where I gather she proceeded to impair my father's ability to sleep by talking to my mother for a few hours, before she came back and perforce impinged on my sleeping because she watched TV for a while to calm herself further so she could sleep.
Awesome.
Otoh, there were some fun people to hang out with Friday night and Saturday night. There were also nice people on Sunday morning, but I was kind of fried at that point, so I'd have been all for doing what almost everyone else was doing, which was stopping in, eating, chatting, and leaving. There were some particularly entertaining individuals, one of whom I privately nicknamed The Situation for more parallels than you can imagine. The music selection and dancing Saturday night were surprisingly great.
Other highlights Saturday night were the firefighters. Oh, yes. There are pictures, although I haven't gotten them downloaded yet. Seems the alarm system was a little sensitive in the museum's kitchen and some of the hot oil smoked a bit and deafness ensued. As for the food, the made to order spring rolls were great, and the rest was a tragicomedy of errors.
There were some appetizers when the event started at 6:30pm, and supposedly the dinner stations were supposed to be available at 7:30. However, the one member of the hosting pair ran around telling the caterers not to start serving because everyone had to be there for the speechifying and opening dancing and whatever. By the time someone else clued in, it was 8:30. Thus, the food did not appear until 9pm. And it was mediocre and had people standing in long lines.
Fortunately, there was a whole separate kids set up that included for real take out pizza from a local pizza place. Also mac and cheese and chicken fingers. Many an adult realized this and cannibalized the kids stuff. I suspect the pizza was not as good as it seemed at the time, but I was quite hungry and pretty annoyed, like many others. Don't worry, there was plenty for the kids. Had there been anything besides wine and some beer and some woodchuck, it would have mitigated anyone caring that there was no food. Alas. Turns out later that the caterers got so discombobulated that they also ended up serving the wrong food of what they eventually served, per one of the hosts.
Oh, well. The food Friday night and Saturday morning and Sunday morning were very good and those parts of things went as planned for everyone. Additionally, we are assured my niece has been returned to college and is alive and well and my sister is back in Ann Arbor, presumably dealing with her co-dependency, or whatever the correct term should be. I am wondering if I should try prilosec, as I've never taken it but it seems like it might be appropriate.
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