So as I hinted in my last post, we left town for the US Thanksgiving weekend to go visit my parents in Virginia. I didn’t really mention anything because I’m sort of leery about announcing to the world that our house will be relatively unattended.*
As is traditional, we ate ourselves stupid though the highlight for me was the supper of rockfish in wine sauce, not the turkey (though the turkey was damn fine). The three hour time change plus the inherent difference in our typical schedule versus my folks’** meant that we were almost as lagged as if we’d traveled to England, but the food was way better.
We also went to Jamestown, a colonial recreation site, and visited the glassblowers’ which is one of my favourite places anywhere. When I was a pup my parents had to practically resort to force to get me away from the place. They still have to nudge pretty hard, but I’m harder to move these days.***
We also went to the Mariner’s Museum to see the progress on the Monitor exhibit, which was quite neat.
The funniest thing that happened was probably on Thursday, when my dad said “OK, we have to get to bed early so that we can go shopping and hit all the sales tomorrow!” He managed to keep a straight face for all of two seconds, while we were frozen en tableau, before everyone fell about laughing. OK, maybe that’s only funny if you know my father, but trust me, it was hi-larious. It got even funnier when we saw that an anti-consumerism organization was offering free hugs at a local mall. Shopping, large crowds, and hugging. Just what my family’s all about.****
But now we’re home, anyway, and back to the grind. And an incipient cold that I probably picked up on the plane. Bleah.
* Relatively. There’s still Rocco and the pitbulls, of course.
** Hint: The phrase “Early to bed, early to rise” does not and never has included us.
*** Especially after being ballasted with turkey and potatoes.
**** You may imagine the sarcasm hand sign here. My sisters were attendants at my wedding, and when the photographer squished us all together for a “picture of the sisters together, awww!” one said “I think this is the closest we’ve ever been to each other.” She may have been correct.
Good lord! I loved the Jamestown glass blowing as a kid.
To this day, my sweetie amuses himself by watching me at living history museums. Apparently, I can get an interpreter to drop the "prithee kind maiden, wouldst thou like to see me make this ye olde thingamajig" crap and get down and dirty and talk shop in a matter of seconds.
I'm a thing-maker and I love to learn about what other people make.
Lisa, that's hilarious. I'm exactly the same way. The glassblowing at Jamestown and the blacksmith at Williamsgburg held (and hold) a strong fascination for me. As do the fibre arts demos, but that's more recent.
(I was able to pick out a lace-knitted counterpane from across the room at a Civil War house exhibit, and identify the pattern page from Godey's Lady's Book. Sad, really.
See and here I thought you'd go an entire post without mentioning knitting.
As for the wedding. My favorite photos are still:
1) You parents. Obviously not in love with the photographer..."We are here to give away our daughter...that is all"
2)The Sisters, cracking up. I believe the line quoted to me was Amanda after being "encouraged" to move closer.
"We're [your last name here]. We don't *touch*."
I realized that I probably shouldn't use your last name on the interweb. For those that know mes aimee, just sub in her last name for the placeholder.
Hey, remember when we all touched?
That was awesome. There is photographic evidence!
I remember many aspects of your wedding! One of them being your sister asking to touch my occupied belly, and one of your parents' friends looking as if your sister had instead asked if she could perform an internal gynecological exam on me. Because that person knew the 'no touchy' thing about your family, I guess, and also didn't know my belly was occupied.
Glass blowers are HAWT. (snicker)