Sorry I haven't blogged for almost two weeks. I was in New Mexico, then Texas, and had no time to blog. Besides that, I didn't really feel that there was much to blog about. I suppose I could have written a little as things happened, because things did happen, but it all makes more sense as a unit, in a huge mega-post like this one.
Phase One: New Mexico, pre-Jeff
Tuesday I traveled from Texas to New Mexico. (Jeff was to follow on Thursday.) Even though it was a relatively easy air trip, traveling was all I did that day. Pete very nicely gave me a ride to the airport at 7:30, and traffic was good for rush hour. There was no line for the self-checkin, and I had no luggage to check, so I was seated at the gate 10 minutes after arriving at the airport, in spite of the security staff's best efforts. (I'm kidding. They made us take off our shoes, but it wasn't their fault that there was a line.) The plane was a few minutes late taking off from Seattle, but I made my connection in Dallas. Once in El Paso, I had to take another nearly 2-hour shuttle to where my parents picked me up, and then it was most of another hour before we got to my parents' cabin. *sigh* I could have wished for a simpler journey.
My parents have a little cabin in the mountains of New Mexico. The last time they dragged me there, it was New Year's, and I would much have preferred to stay in Dallas with my friends. There was ice and snow all over the ground, we barely managed to get the van up the hill (even with snow chains), the water pipes were frozen so no running water, the cabin was so cold the first night that I crawled in with my parents to keep warm, and we were pretty much stuck in the cabin because we didn't dare go down the hill for fear that we wouldn't get back up. This time was much better, because there was running water (although not enough to waste).
When my parents got this cabin, it had oodles of dead moths in the corners and on the windowsills. When I talked to my mother just before my trip, she said, with characteristic understatement, You remember all those dead moths? ... Well, they came from live moths.
My parents combat the live moths with flypaper, which works well except for the danger of catching one's own hair in it. (They combat the dead ones with a broom.)
There's a huge king-size bed in the cabin's master bedroom. My parents used to sleep in it, until they got tired of losing each other in so much space. So now they sleep in a double bed upstairs, which is fine except that it's in the same room as the twin bed where they suggested that I sleep. I'm sick and tired of sleeping in the same room as my parents. I'm 23 now, and besides, my mother snores. So I slept outside, in the crisp night air and a cozy sleeping bag, and was woken by pre-dawn birdsong, the crunch of birdseed, and the buzz of hummingbird wings.
Late Wednesday morning my father's brother and his family arrived at the cabin. I had seen Uncle Bill two years ago at my brother's wedding, but the last time I saw Aunt Jane, Tom, and Kate was in the summer of 1995, when Tom was 5 and Kate was 3. Tom is now nearly as old as I was when I saw them last. Tom was very talkative, Kate more quiet, but I regret only that we were unable to spend more time with them. I hope that it will not be too long before I see them again.
We hiked with the extended family, and on Wednesday evening my mother served barbecue, which Tom devoured with an appetite that was shocking to his parents. Evidently they have yet to adjust to teenage-boy eating habits.
Phase Two: Jeff in New Mexico
Thursday afternoon, when we were all at New Mexico's first pistachio ranch and I was counting down the minutes until Jeff's arrival, he called me on my parents' cell phone. Well, I made my flight,
he said. Three guesses as to where I am, and the first two don't count.
He was in Amarillo, of all places. A thunderstorm in Dallas had shut down the airport, so his plane was routed to Amarillo, where it sat on the ground for a couple of hours before continuing on to Dallas. Luckily for him, everything was just pushed back 2-3 hours, so he still made his flight to El Paso, where my parents and I were waiting, getting calls every few minutes from American's automagic flight notification service, telling us that flight 499 was now scheduled to arrive at 5:25, then 5:40, then 6:25... It eventually landed, 3 hours late, and poor Jeff was famished because he hadn't eaten anything since the meager airplane food that morning. (Pizzas had been ordered for everyone in Amarillo, but the plane had to depart before they arrived.) We fed him leftover sandwiches, apples, cherries, Sun chips, and string cheese from lunch, and if he wasn't full, at least he didn't starve.
Friday Dad, Jeff, and I hiked a 7-mile hogback trail with lovely vistas and a net 1100 feet downhill but lots of uphill in between. It was nice, but I wish I had real hiking boots with ankle support. (I will have to solve this problem soon.) Saturday Jeff and I went on a little loop trail, on our own, and that was nice too. Then Sunday we drove the 600 miles back to Dallas, a long grueling ride but not too bad with 3 drivers (I didn't take a turn because I was too sleepy and tired). That evening I showed Jeff picture albums and gave him the first Sandman to read.
Phase Three: Dallas
Monday Jeff and I had lunch with my mother's sister, Frances, and her daughter Allison. It was a really nice catch-up lunch, since I hadn't seen them since Christmas. Afterwards Jeff and I went to visit my grandmother, which was both heartening and discouraging. She seemed a bit more coherent than I had expected from hearing my mother talk, but it became gradually clear that she didn't know who I was. I think she recognized but couldn't place me, even though I kept talking about my mother and other family members, showing Jeff the people in Grandmama's photos. As I was leaving, Grandmama asked, Do I know your mother?
I knew then that she didn't recognize me, but Mom says that when she visited on Friday, Grandmama remembered that I had visited, with my boyfriend, which is better than I had hoped.
That evening, my old junior-high friend Al came over, and she went to dinner with us (barbecue), and the three of us played Illuminati. Al and I hadn't played for years, and Jeff had never played at all, although he had heard of it. I have brought my set back to Seattle, in the hopes that it will get played more often.
Tuesday morning Jeff and I went to Hancocks for supplies to make costumes for Tacky Tourney. Jeff bought black broadcloth for trews, intending to wear them with a simple brown tunic and a cloak, as Aragorn. I had thought about improvising something with shiny, shimmery cloth, but in the end I used a costume pattern which was sort of intended for fairies but looks great as an elvish dress as well. Mom had cataract surgery that day, so we didn't get started until Wednesday, and even then we hardly did anything, because I took Mom to her checkup appointment, and Jeff mowed the lawn. In the evening we wanted to rent The Two Towers, not realizing that it wouldn't be out until August, so we got Dirty Dancing instead, because Jeff hadn't seen it.
Thursday was sewing in earnest, and in the evening Jeff and I went to a KERA free movie screening for members. The movie was Friends and Family, about a pair of gay mafia hit men in Manhattan. (Review forthcoming forthcome.) Friday we had intended to go sight-seeing downtown, but I decided that I needed to spend the time sewing instead. (There was a lot of time-consuming pressing, pinning, and hand-sewing on my costume.) Jeff finished hemming his trews and wore them around to prove that they were comfortable. Aunt Frances, Allison, and her fiancé Brian came over for a lovely dinner that evening.
Saturday Jeff and Dad left insanely early in the morning to go sailing, while Mom and I went to a lovely luncheon bridal shower for my cousin Allison. Mom and Dad went off to bridge late that afternoon, and Jeff and I went out for dinner once again with Al. Afterwards I worked feverishly on my costume until I finished it, very late, and then packed my bags with books and clothes that I was bringing back to Seattle. I didn't get to bed until about 1:30 this morning.
Phase Four: Seattle
Our flight was at 8:37, so we were going to leave the house at 6:30. I woke up at 6:24. Oops, no shower, but at least I had my clothes set out, and for once Jeff was up before I, so there was breakfast. Once again the travel was fairly easy, though it took 2.5 hours to get home from the airport because of long waits for buses.
This afternoon I fixed ratatouille, and Jeff and I lay down on my bed to nap while it cooked, because neither of us had gotten much sleep. But when it was ready, Jeff wouldn't wake up, so I ate by myself before taking another shot at waking him. It's partially my fault; I should have told him to set his internal clock to wake up for dinner. It seems that fatigue rather dimmed his hunger, because he didn't eat as much as usual. That's very good, because now I have ratatouille leftovers! Yum.