Hatched from an Egg

A couple of days ago, I blogged about how stressed I was trying to get everything in order before my parents arrived for their two week visit with us. That stress does not even begin to compare to the stress we've been having since they have arrived on Wednesday evening.

We've probably set a new world record, too, because my parents drove me so nuts in less than 72 hours that I've ran to the bedroom, slammed the door, and asked Trueman to come wake me up once they've gone back home.

On the first day, we've had to pick them up from Dulles Airport. Anyone who is familiar with the traffic in this area knows that traffic stands still on the Beltway and in outlaying areas for hours at a time in the morning as well as in the evening. They choose to arrive on a 6 o'clock flight, which required us to head out to the airport at three to miss traffic and then put us into the tail-end of traffic on the way back home. I loathe traffic.

After sitting in traffic for what seemed like forever, we finally made it to their hotel. They are staying in a very nice Ramada hotel that has a pool, restaurant, breakfast bar, and all sorts of other nice amenities. This is a hotel we found for them, which cost them nearly half of what everyone else was quoting them - so they're not just getting a really nice room, they're also getting a really nice deal.

Which would be great, if this were anyone other than my parents, because they, of course, found things to complain about. First it was the smell in the hallway. Then they couldn't figure out the light in the room. Then they complained that the room has two double beds instead of a king bed even though they booked two double beds and they also confirmed when the clerk asked, "Two double beds?" at check-in. The next day they complained that they had to make their own waffles at the breakfast bar and that there was only sugary jelly.

The next day we met them at their hotel early in the afternoon since we thought they may want some time to relax before we start to do things, get their bearings around the area and the like. The first thing we heard was that they "couldn't sleep because the air conditioning is noisy" and that they "had been up since eight". We took them to the Marine Corps Museum since it's relatively close to both where we live and where they are staying, and we wanted to take it easy on their first day.

I have to admit that the museum bored me. Partially because Trueman and I have already seen the museum and all the current exhibits. Partially because my parents, even though they repeatedly said it's "very interesting" when we asked, were about the least enthusiastic and interested people I have ever seen in any museum. In the Museum gift shop, we got to hear all about how ugly the artwork on the little gift packs of Marine Corps coffee was, and how stupid they thought some of the gift items were (like the "Hug a Hero" doll for kids).

At the end of our trip to the museum, my mom mentioned that she would like to go shopping for a new pair of jeans, since she hadn't packed any and really needed a new pair of jeans anyway. I asked her what brand she wanted and she said she didn't care - always a bad indicator. I suggested we could go to Potomac Mills and try the Old Navy store.

Old Navy turned out to have a huge sale, and my mom turned out to not know her sizes. Not knowing your sizes isn't normally a big deal, except that my mom won't just take a couple of different sizes back to the dressing room with her to see which one fits best. Instead, she will unfold a couple of pairs, one at a time, and hold them in front of herself to gauge length and width. Then she will take one pair to try them on, hoping she picked the right size. She did eventually try one pair on that turned out to fit her just right and bought it, but the whole process just seemed overly complicated.

After she paid for her pair of jeans, my dad mentioned that he could really use some new jeans as well. Since there were none at Old Navy that were to his liking (of course), we went to find the Levi's store which had been moved to the complete opposite of the mall. We ended up getting a pair for him at the Eddie Bauer store, which wasn't quite at the end of the mall, but pretty close.

When I stopped in at another store (Hot Topic) on the way, since we were already at the mall, my parents followed me around asking me a million questions and making some rather rude comments about the clothes and other things that are sold there. "Are you looking for something in particular?" "Who would wear that?" "What in the world is that?!" "Bah, look at this!" "Are you going to buy that?" "Are you going to try that on?" "Why didn't you buy that?" "Why are there skulls on this? We saw a girl the other day who was wearing a shirt that had a lot of skulls on it, too. What kind of a fashion trend is that?"

After the painful trip to the mall we headed back to our place where we made dinner (curry and rice noodles) and just kind of sat around and talked. Apparently, when there's nothing obvious to criticize - our apartment being clean and tidy and our animals being well-behaved - they do much better being around us in a nice, pleasurable manner. We actually had some nice conversation before taking them back to their hotel.

Today, we asked them to come meet us at our apartment at ten, so that we could all head out to Washington, DC. The reason we set the location for our meeting up to be our apartment is that it's on the way in the direction we were going, and there's little point for us to drive to their hotel just to all get into their car and drive right back in the other direction. My parents have a rental car that is perfectly suited for city driving - it's a little Volkswagen Rabbit that sips gas and fits into tight parking spaces.

Imagine our surprise when, instead of coming to meet us at ten o'clock, they pulled up at nine thirty while I was out walking the dog and wondered (loudly) why we weren't ready to go yet. Hmmm... let's think about this one for a little bit. Even though both Trueman and I have time off for the duration of their visit, we still live here. We have things to do, such as taking care of the house, feeding and walking our animals, and the like, before we can head out into the wild blue yonder to play tour guide.

Eventually, we headed out in the Rabbit and first stopped at REI along the way so Trueman and I could price some of the larger hiking backpacks and also the tents. We're thinking about buying a nice ultralight tent for backpacking soon because we'll actually be able to use it once Trueman is done with his recruiting tour - next spring (and yes, that can't come too soon!). I also wanted to see whether there was anything nice Trueman might want for his birthday - there was, I found a nice pair of hiking pants for him.

My parents made the stop at REI about as pleasant as the stop at Hot Topic. They were commenting wildly on various things, about the "weird" materials and the "outrageous" prices. They wondered aloud why I didn't end up buying the two pairs of pants that I tried on, as if there is some sort of universal law that was being broken by the fact that I did not purchase what I tried on even though it fit me. (The world will end!)

I was starting to get a little bit grumpy at that point, as we headed into Washington, DC to the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

I know, that's kind of an odd destination for "tourist" travel - it's even more of an odd destination for me because I'm as far from religious as you could possibly get and I have not been inside a church of any kind for more than ten years, unless you count the chapel during the chaplain's retreat - but that wasn't during mass, it was one of those "ethics" classes. But, my parents are Catholics and we figured that since they enjoy visiting churches when they travel, they would enjoy this church.

The thing is, I don't think they did.

We heard about how much they disliked the traffic. How cold it was inside the church. How big everything was. How hot it was outside. How kitschy some of the items sold in the gift store were. How the stamps at the gift shop were overpriced, and how useless the front register lady at the gift shop was.

After wandering about the Shrine for an hour, we headed back to the car and went to Georgetown. Again, we figured this might be something they would enjoy since they like walking around, looking at old buildings and historic markers, and had agreed to head to Georgetown when we'd made plans the day before. But again, I don't think they got any kind of enjoyment out of it. It was too hot outside and too cold where it was air conditioned. There were "nothing but stores". They "didn't want to shop". They "didn't care to see the tavern where John F. Kennedy proposed to Jackie".

Trueman took all of us to a Chinese tea shop, a really, really nice place with a huge selection of really nice teas ... they ordered Lemon iced tea and complained that it was expensive.

I ended up yelling at them in one of the stores and not talking to them the ride back. When we got back to our place, we asked them to meet us back at our apartment at seven thirty so we could all go out to dinner. The idea was for everyone to shower and change, after a long hot day, and enjoy a meal at the Chinese buffet, which is a destination I picked since this was Trueman and my birthday dinner. I headed off to the shower, then hung around the living room a bit, catching up with my email.

At six thirty-five, there's a knock on the door. It's my mom. Apparently, they had decided they didn't want to go change before dinner and didn't want to drive anywhere "because of the traffic" and were sitting in the parking lot waiting for us ... except that they weren't waiting, they were wanting us to hurry up.

At that point, I went into the bedroom and told Trueman to let me know when they'd gone back home because I was not having a good time and it was frustrating the hell out of me that they are doing exactly what they did last time they visited. They refused to have an opinion on what they wanted to do and where they wanted to go, then agreed to anything we suggested, and then proceeded to complain and gripe about where we were taking them the entire time. It just ... arrrrgh ... makes me want to bang my head against the wall, it's so frustrating.

I don't think they understand that this is the first real leave we have had in three years, with the exception of the couple of days in January for the FIG re-enactment and the convalescent leave Trueman had after his shoulder surgery. They definitely don't understand that Trueman is going to get a lot of shit when he comes back off leave, because he is out 10 days (and Labor Day weekend) of contacts and possible enlistments. They also don't understand that this means we will not get any other days off this year except for holiday weekends that everyone gets off.

They also don't get that we don't want to eat out every single day and that we don't want to pay $16 parking in places like DC every time we take a trip down there because we have bills to pay at home. Sure, we go out to eat and do things normally, but not every day. I don't want to stop every five minutes and buy tickets here, water and snacks there, pay for parking here, and all that jazz. It just adds up a lot more than I want to spend.

I've been suggesting to Trueman that, since my parents will obviously be miserable no matter what we do, we should just be doing things that we want to do - at least that way, we'll get something out of our vacation. It may just be worth it.