family lurrrve

I went to Kentucky over the weekend, and boy, was it a trip. Lately my trips up there have been swift and relatively uneventful. I'm happy to report that this one was completely uneventful, but geez. It took me a half hour longer than usual to drive-- and that's each way. It rained all the way up on Friday- mostly just a drizzle requiring the wipers, but interspersed with downpours. Traffic was also unusually heavy, and there was construction scattered throughout Tennessee. I thought coming back would be easier, because I didn't expect rain. Silly me. It hit just the other side of Asheville, and was so heavy that there were cars pulled off the road. At least it wasn't that heavy for too awfully long.

This was even more of a family reunion event than these trips usually are. My brother came down from Akron, and his son brought his ten-week-old daughter over. (Her mom was going to a funeral in her family.) Holy shit, my baby brother is a grandfather!! Alexis, the infant, was a beauty. Her hair is bright red, and I do mean a light shiny copper color. She is also an extremely happy baby, generally speaking. Unfortunately, the night before, she'd not slept well, so her dad didn't sleep either, and we made him go take a nap while we got lunch together. In the meanwhile, Alexis needed to be fed... and if you've ever given a baby a bottle, you know what happens on the other end of the equation. Yup. I got to change a dirty diaper. (That's as certain as having the cats come running when I scoop the litter box!) The last time I changed a dirty diaper was for her father, I realized to my amusement. For some reason I didn't have any trouble this time; last time I had to abandon the task to a parent to keep from being sick. Watching my brother and his son gaze adoringly at this tiny infant was both amusing and sweet. I was delighted that Jacob is of the new breed of father that takes care of a baby and enjoys it. Boy, is THAT a change from the bad old days. I won't go into grisly detail, but take my word that my kids' father didn't lift a finger.

The odd thing that happened was that my brother (yes, the new grandfather) reverted to ten-year-old-brother mode and spent the entire first day we were there picking on me. That caught me completely off guard; he doesn't do that any other time I see him. Just something about being all four together as a family must have flipped some switch somewhere. The second day he acted more normal, which was good. I'd hate to have had to kill him, right there on Mother's living room rug. I'm sure it would have made quite a mess, and there's no way I could have disposed of the body.

I mentioned the idea of starting a business to Mother, and got a more negative response than I expected. Then it turned out that she thought I was going to open a store front. Yikes! When I finished explaining my plans she decided they sounded sensible, and even touted them as such to Daddy. Whew. I'm glad that I don't have to look forward to not-so-veiled comments about it for the next year or so. I do expect she'll start sending clippings about running a small business. Clippings are her stock in trade, but they're less stressful than the constant commentary.

The cats were most unhappy that I was gone, particularly since I was gone last weekend too. The first couple of hours they ran from me like I was going to beat them or something. Miranda made up to me the quickest, and has been washing my chin and giving me love nips all day. Some of them have been more nip and less love, I can tell you. At least she did a reasonable job of letting me sleep last night.

I got a killer headache this afternoon, and it came on rather suddenly. I was only vaguely aware that it was even starting and all of a sudden it hurt to even try to turn my head; it took over an hour for the meds to work, too. It took a while for me to figure out that it was from the storm that came through this afternoon. Man, I hope I don't get these every time it rains all summer! This was quite a storm, though, so I'm hoping the headache was directly related in intensity. The cats were freaked out by the thunder, and there was one lightning strike/thunder clap that nearly had me under the bed, too.

Tomorrow I hope to get started on that mental list of things-to-do that I was adding to all the way home yesterday. Today I just needed to bond with my kitties and sit around like a vegetable, and I did an exemplary job of it. I did finish reading The Knights Next Door, which I bought as a download. I enjoyed it a lot. Ah, tomorrow.....