The in-laws are coming! The in-laws are coming!

2004-09-16 at 7:11 p.m.

Moving out to the Left Coast has had many advantages. We love it out here, frankly. A great friend network, temperate mild weather, wonderful people, a job Andrew loves, a career I'm excited about, more affordable living than Chicago, a town not too big and not too small, with a museum, an airport, and a vibrant culture, a yard and a garage and a washer and a dryer, it doesn't snow... we really do love it.

There are downsides, however. Our family is all back east. If we're talking about my family, they start at Michigan and just keep going east, which puts them at a minimum three hour time difference. This is a bummer that makes phone conversations difficult, not to mention visits. If we're talking Andrew's family, they're all in the Chicago area (except for Cowboy Don, who's in, of course, Texas). This still makes visits difficult, either them coming here or us going there.

My father travels a lot for business, which means he racks up the miles--on an airline that does fly to PDX. This has facilitated a couple visits from the parents, and one ginormous visit from pretty much everyone which was orgasmically great. Andrew's family, however, either has young kids (making visits more of a logistical UGH) or no way of getting here, or both.

Last year we did Thanksgiving with his family, and it was a nightmare. First of all, travelling on the day before Thanksgiving? Bad bad bad. Second of all, it takes an entire day to get to parts east from here, and when you're talking about a weekend?

And this year, when that weekend would fall in the middle of my term?

Yeah, no.

So our deal was this: we'd stay here for Thanksgiving if we visited there some other time.

Andrew gets the brilliant idea that, since none of his family has visited here, let's fly them here instead.

Which is a great idea, except that his parents are staying with us for a week. He's delirious with excitement. For the past six days, he's been on Countdown mode.

"Guess who's going to be here in six days!"

"Know what happens five days from now?"

"Four more days, baby!"

You get the idea.

I like his parents. They're sweet, and they have never been this far west, and it's kind of neat to be able to play host (in whatever limited capacity I will be able to, given my schedule). But. They'll be staying here. For a week.

A week.

Seven days, six nights.

Starting tonight.

Heh.

(Nothing against his parents, but that's a long time to have any guests.)

Now, his parents are dairy farmers. They are great people, but we are not going to be going out to eat a lot. We can't afford it, they can't afford it. So--there's going to be lots of cooking.

I wrote up a menu, with lots of meals planned where I could make food beforehand, or where it'd take minimum prep. I went to the grocery store and bought more dead animal than I've ever bought at one time in my life. Dead animal, folk, ain't cheap. We have chicken, we have pork, we have ground beef, we have stew beef, and we have deli meat. We got more meat than you could shake a very meaty stick at. The most meat that ever lived on Meat Street.

Yesterday I made my mom's lasagna--it's all done, ready to pop in the oven. That's scheduled for Saturday. Today I made a chicken dish for tomorrow. Ribs on Sunday. Burgers on Monday. Stew on Tuesday. Cold cuts and/or leftovers for lunch, eggs and bacon for breakfast. It's a meat-eaters heaven. It's on.

(Yes, I do take good care of your youngest son! Please love me!)

So after all this prep, what happens?

They're now holed up at an O'Hare hotel. Their plane had mechanical problems. They're now the proud possessors of two free tickets to anywhere in the US and are scheduled to get out here tomorrow at noon.

There was a mild scramble of phone calls. "They're in the air!" "No, they're delayed!" "No, they're in the air!" "No, they just called from the hotel!" "Which hotel?" "They're not answering the phone!" "Are you sure?" "I think so!"

Ah, 21st century communication.

(In a sense, it's good. I'm teaching my first whole class tomorrow, and Tom, nice as he is, snores louder than any four people put together. In an entirely acknowledgedly selfish way I'm a little grateful I can sleep sans distraction tonight.)

Nonetheless, they're here tomorrow. Wish me luck.

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