Three days and two nights at the parents’ = way too much time
Wednesday night was fun hanging out with MB. He made dinner – tilapia with veggies and potatoes – which is great because 1) he’s a good cook, and 2) I don’t have to do anything! Since he enjoys cooking so much, he doesn’t put any pressure on me to help him, and in fact says, “Just work on your writing.” I’ve taken on the role of cleaning up and doing the dishes afterwards, which is a fair trade I think.
Afterwards we walked all around town. We checked out the movies, but anything we wanted to see was playing too late. Plus it was nice just to walk and talk before my going away for a few days.
One place we stopped in was the Forbidden Planet comic book store in Union Square, which he’d never been to. I wondered aloud, “I wonder if they have all the Buffy comics?” He asked about Buffy, which prompted a very long monologue from me describing all the highlights from the series.
That made me realize how ridiculous some of it sounds out of context. “Well, Angel was a good vampire, then he had sex with Buffy, and then he was a bad vampire. . .And then there was Spike, who was in love with Buffy. He was evil, but then he got his soul back. . .Oh yeah, and there were these evil nerd guys, who made a Buffy bot.” We were cracking up.
The next day I caught an 11:30 AM train to NJ. Had lunch, then slept for like three hours. Got up, ate dinner, Mongolian hot pot as usual. My mother offered to bake a chicken, which she doesn’t do well, and my dad and I were like, “Um, why?”
In between all the eating and sleeping, I did work on my writing, though not the work I had taken home from the office (boo! for bringing work home). In the evening, I also chatted with MB, who was on his own (his family’s spread out all over).
The next morning I wrote more. In the afternoon MB texted me – turns out he was at work :( – and asked me to help with this thing he was developing. Basically he wanted to take it and make it into ridiculous corp speak, which we both hate but which I’m quite fluent in.
I had fun cranking that out, and was making myself laugh with the ridiculousness of it. Like instead of container, “containing device.” Instead of Read the file, “Leverage comprehension of the document containing device.” I scare myself sometimes.
In the evening, I finally started doing the stuff from my job and got through the majority of it, interspersed with working on my writing. A very productive evening. Spoke with MB again before going to bed.
Saturday, more writing. At this point the ‘rents were annoying me. Dad: “You’re all set with your 401K, right?” Yes, Dad, it hasn’t changed from the last time you asked me. Mom: “You save a little bit every month, right?” Yes, Mom, don’t worry.
They may seem like innocent questions, but they reek of, “We’re so worried about you and your security and what will happen to you 30 years from now? We wish you’d settle down and buy a house and never do anything different or live anywhere different, and just have a kid and be done with it.”
I may have been in that stage when I was married, at least beginning down that path, but since my divorce, I basically feel like I’m starting over. I had so many years of being “settled” and worrying about saving money and buying a house that I don’t want to be in that mind set right now. I sort of feel like this is my second youth. MB is in the same place, though he has a better business head than I do. He maxes out his 401K primarily for tax purposes. Smart that boy.
Ack, and of course my mother had to ask more about him! Not in a negative way, just in a curious-about-his-background way, which she may twist negatively later but I’ll worry about that when or if the time comes. She did have good enough sense to notice that I talk about him in a different way than other guys. That I seem calm and happy about him, and not worried.
Saturday afternoon ES called, thank God. I really needed to get out of the house at that point. We walked around Princeton, then had dinner. AY was supposed to meet us at 7, but she slept through our calls and texts, and didn’t get to to the restaurant till 8:30.
I went back into the city after that, ES kind enough to drop me off at the station.
Yesterday MB and I hung out. Walking, shopping, working on our stuff. Talking, laughing. He cooked again, stir fry chicken this time. It was good but the fish was better.
Blah, work. Luckily today is not too heavy in terms of meetings.
I was talking about parents with my cousin over the weekend. Every time they ask a question we’d rather not answer we make a mental note: “Don’t ask that question when you have kids.”
Who knows if it’ll actually work, but it’s funny knowing we think that way. No matter how innocent a question or comment may sounds, I suppose we’re always going to be suspicious of our parents’ motives. (Or is that just an Asian thing?)
I concur, long weekends at the parents=NO GOOD. My parents were also driving me CRAZY with the thinly veiled questions regarding my “future” which also reek of “settle down and give me grandchildren already!”. Ugh.
I feel your pain!
Isn’t it crazy how you can immediately read through ‘innocent questions’?? I do it too.
Sometimes you just need little baby doses of your parents, don’t you think?
You need to blog more, I love reading it.
Fluent in corp-speak eh?
I laughed at the reaction to your mom wanting to cook a chicken.
pandax: it could be an asian thing, or it could be a passive aggressive thing, since asians are less direct. like okay this person is saying one thing but do they actually mean something else?
good idea about making mental notes for what *not* to ask your kids.
kai: yeah, i think sometimes parents believe if they’re not worrying about something, then nothing is being done about it.
hemlock: baby doses are so right! usually i spend just one night at my parents’. that’s the way to go.
running42k: thanks for the encouragement! my parents give me excellent fodder for entertainment.