Egypt and Australia

Yesterday I went to the Egypt at the Frist exhibit with Jerry and his children, Taylor and Alex, and after that we went to the Australian Festival in Centennial Park. I wasn't allowed to take pictures in the museum, but I took a lot of pictures at the Australian Festival.

The pictures I've posted from the festival are on my flickr.com site, but here are a few to entice you to view them.

Vacation Pictures: Part Deux

Here's more of my pictures from my vacation.


The living room, taken from my loft room.


My loft room... just disregard the fluffy pink bear, plzktnx.




The view from the deck.


See those ripples that look like rain drops? That's actually ripples from fish and bugs.




The second story of our condo, from the outside at night.


The first story of our condo, from the outside at night.


The view from my loft, on the wall above the living room.


Candid picture of my grandmother sitting and looking miserable. She probably didn't even know that it was a camera I was holding when she was staring at me.


The town where were staying. That's... pretty much the whole town, except for Miss Patti's.


My dad scaring the crap out me. I was convinced he was going to tumble headlong down the rocks into the lake.


Just because it made me laugh. I got a mental picture of people just standing around that sign, breathing in the air.

Vacation Pictures: Miss Patti's and Flowers

Here's some of the pictures from my vacation. I took all of these at Miss Patti's, which is some touristy, old-timey place that charges waaay too much in their gift shops but has some really good food.






Because I liked the statues...


















My mother, next to the gigantic wind-chimes she wants for Christmas.


And... the price tag for the wind-chimes she wants for Christmas.










Mile-high meringue on Miss Patti's Coconut Meringue pie. Mmmmm...


The ceiling at Miss Patti's, just because I liked how all the lights looked.

Vacation: Days Three and Four

Day Three

Everyone was grumpy when we got up. My parents were arguing over them going out to breakfast. My mother wanted to stay in, dad wanted to go out. Granny had her usual list of complaints. I think we all were ready to go home. After breakfast, mother and I both went and took naps since neither of us had much sleep.

When we got up, we had lunch. Then mom and I went out. Mom didn't care if it was raining; she was determined to have a good time. We drove to Miss Patti's, an 1880s "settlement" with a lot of overpriced gift shops and a pretty decent restaurant. We walked through the settlement and I took pictures of the flowers for something to do, and then we went to Miss Patti's restaurant and had pie. On a side note, their meringue is the tallest meringue I've ever seen. If I tried to do that on a pie it would just fall flat.

When we left there we drove to the Land Between the Lakes state park and took one of the "scenic drives" by the lake. We went back to the condo and mom switched places with dad and I took him to the scenic drive as well.

We came back and started up the grill on the deck. We had been marinating chicken for them and a steak for me, and were determined to grill them, rain or no. We put the grill under the deck umbrella. My steak was very, very tasty. My parents had gotten microwave mashed potatoes which were about the nastiest thing I've ever tried. They weren't the good kind like Bob Evans or something. So by 8 o'clock we were all hungry again.

It was at this point I discovered the phone lines were out when I tried to call to order a pizza. I used my cell phone and called security and informed them, and asked if there was anywhere that delivers pizza. What was I thinking? We're in the middle of nowhere. Of course not. But the grocery store makes pizza in their deli. Dad went and picked up a mediocre thin-crust pizza and we watched a DVD.

At about 8:15 granny goes, "Whenever you're ready to put me to bed, I'm ready to go." They jumped at that and put her to bed immediately. She had spent the entire day complaining how tired she was, and refusing to take a nap.

After the movie, I went to my room and my parents stayed in the living room. I watched a movie on my portable DVD player, and they read. About the time we had all turned out the lights, I hear a quiet voice. "Allison, are you still awake?"

"Huh? What?"

"I can't sleep with her tonight. Can I sleep with you?"

Turns out, when my mother went to bed, granny started talking to her. Asking her why we hadn't gone home the night before. Then lay there in bed staring at her while she was trying to sleep.

She came upstairs, got the other half of the king bed pulled down, realized she forget her special pillow. Goes back down stairs, gets the pillow, back up stairs, realizes she lost her ear plugs. Back down stairs, back up stairs, finally gets into bed. A few minutes later, she's up and back downstairs again. She didn't like the fans I had on because she had it so hot in there. So she wakes dad up and has him pull out the sleeper sofa. He had just been sleeping on it without pulling it out, figuring it was more comfortable. Finally, every one's settled and we go to bed.

Day Four

Thank god, it's time to go home. We had breakfast, got everything packed up and in the van, and hauled ass out of there. Between the fight for survival with all the ants in the kitchen and the spiders everywhere (I'm sorry, I don't particularly like walking through spider webs every time I start up or down the stairs), the shoddy cleaning, the maintenance issues, the rude staff, and my grandmother's bitching, we were more than ready to see the last of the place, as soon as possible.

During breakfast, granny just stopped eating and looks at dad til he goes, "What? What? What do you want!"

"I've had it," she informs us.

"Yeah, well, so have we," he mutters under his breath.

Finally, we're on the road heading home. And of course, to top off our trip, my grandmother decides she feels nauseous and wants to throw up. My mother happened to have a plastic bucket thing under the seat just for that event. All she did was hack and spit into it like she was going to be sick, but didn't once throw up. Drama queen.

All in all, we're all glad to be home. We had our fun moments and such, watching the turtles, swimming, just getting out, but with the weather, and the crappy condo, and granny, it's good to be back. Photos will follow when I get around to it.

Oh and when we got back, granny told her home health nurse the following things: We were gone to Springfield (we were in Kentucky), we were visiting her sister (they're all dead), I was her niece (um, no), and that we all had fun (hah, this coming from the one that complained the whole time). Bleh.

Vacation: Days One and Two

Day One

We packed up the van with sustenance, luggage, and family members and started on our way to Lake Barkley around noon. Check in wasn't until three, and with no stops it it about a two and a half hour trip. I volunteered to drive, since I'd get bored sitting in the back and I can't read in a moving vehicle without getting ill.

We thought we would have to stop several times for my grandmother, who is almost 98 years old and is convinced that she can't go for ten minutes without getting up and going to the bathroom. We stopped twice for various reasons, and she never said a word. As we got closer to our eventual destination, my father would point out to her house many miles there were left to go.

This was when she started being troublesome. Whether it was an hour, thirty minutes or ten minutes til we got there, it "wasn't quick enough." When asked why she said, "You know why." When asked why she hadn't said anything either of the times we stopped she either ignored the question, since she didn't want to answer it, or said "Well I didn't want to if I could help it." Then when we stopped to check in, dad was in there for maybe five minutes and she says, "If I knew we were going to be this long waiting, I would have gone to the bathroom." Gah!

We got to our "cabin", and I do use the word loosely. For the price, it is rather small, and the maintenance leaves much to be desired, but otherwise it's more a small house than a cabin. There's a living room, a small kitchen and dining area, and a bedroom and bathroom downstairs, and a "loft" upstairs with a bathroom. Since my grandmother can't get up and down the stairs, her and my mother are in the lower bedroom, my father's on the couch, and I'm in the loft. There is little to no privacy, as the loft is open onto the living room and sound carries quite well. The upstairs room is obviously meant to be the master bedroom.

My father and I went swimming in the pool for maybe thirty minutes before we had to leave to go grocery shopping and get ready for dinner. They were going to pick up things for breakfast and some microwave dinners for granny, and for me and my mother as we took turns watching her while the other person went to dinner with dad. The pool was occupied only by my father and myself and was just about the perfect temperature, in my opinion. Cold when you first get in, and then just right when you got used to it.

When my parents got back from the grocery, my grandmother says, "Thank god." My parents look confused. Then she says, "I'm ready to go home."

Huh, what? They both say, almost in unison, that we are staying for three nights. I forget what exactly she said to that, but it was something like, "Oh, my..."

The first night was my night to go to dinner with dad, while mom stayed in with granny. He and I went to the members only yacht club, that guests of the condos here get to go to. It's only open Wednesday through Sunday, so that night was the only night we could go, and my mother had eaten there before. It was on a pier right out over the water, and
you could watch the yachts coming into the marina from the tables.

When we got back, we lit some insect repellent lamps and sat out on our deck overlooking the bay until it was too dark to see anything. Granny stayed in the bedroom watching TV, and my parents and I just sat outside, enjoying the outdoors. You can see turtles near the shore just under our deck sticking their little heads up for air, then sticking them back in and diving. There was circles of water all over the bay where fish, presumably bass, as that's what was purported to be in the lake, jumped for bugs. If you were looking right at the spot where one jumped, you could catch a glimpse of silver fin.

Eventually, I went up to my room and watched a movie on my portable DVD player until I was tired enough to sleep, I thought.

There's no curtains on the windows. This isn't going to be pretty, in the morning. The windows in the loft and in the living room are almost floor to ceiling, french style, with a half-circle plate glass window at the top. The windows in the living room are almost two stories high. I'm going to have light streaming in from both sides. Ack. Also, the bed is awful. I don't know how people sleep on memory foam beds. I feel like I'm sleeping in a hole. I sink down in the mattress, and it takes a supreme force of will to so much as roll over. Plus it's hot! That foam crap really holds in your body heat.

My mother has the thermostat in this place up to 80 degrees, because god forbid my granny gets cold and has to use a sweater or a blanket. I'm up here with the ceiling fan going, and the windows open to the cool night air.

It took me ages to go to sleep. I missed my own nice firm mattress and super soft sheets, and my window unit air conditioner that I can have whatever temperature I like! I think it was between one thirty and two when I finally went to sleep. I had to put my headphones on and turn on my mp3 player to avoid my father's snoring.

Day Two

Oh my god, rude awakening. One of the alarms up here was set to go off at 5 AM, and not by me. Imagine my surprise.

Surprise is an understatement, really.

It scared the living bejeebus out of me. I thought the house was burning down or something. I finally figured out what the hell it was, and sat on the edge of the bed looking out the window for a few minutes. There was a lot of lightning and thunder, and the wind was blowing so loudly. I lay back down and eventually went to sleep, taking the opportunity to put the eye mask over my eyes to block the inevitable sunrise, waking up again around 7 AM to my parents talking in the kitchen and living room area about when they should wake me up.

"I'm not asleep," I said.

After we had breakfast (oatmeal and hard boiled eggs, oh yay...), my father and I went to rent a golf cart. We planned on using it for the day to ride back and forth into the (extremely tiny, but cute) town area, so we didn't have to drive around in the big-ass van. My mother and I left my father with granny and went into town and bought a few more groceries. We came back and dropped off the groceries, then we back into town to go to the little shops. Mostly they were antiques and such, so we didn't take long. We were going to go eat, but one of the two places to eat was a buffet, and we weren't that hungry, and the other one my parents were going to for dinner, so we came back to the marina and ate at a small sandwich and grill type place on the property. They had the best homemade pie! I had chocolate chess, and my mother had coconut creme.

After we got back, my father and I headed out to a store my mother thought he would like to look around in, and then we went back to the condo, changed into our swimwear, and went back to the pool. After about twenty minutes, of course it started raining. That, in itself, didn't bother me. What's a little rain, when you're already in a pool of water? But shortly we noticed it was fucking cold and the more it rained, the colder the pool got, so we semi-dried off under a deck umbrella, got back in our cart, and went back to the condo.

My parents and I went to eat, and I stayed with my grandmother. When they got back, my grandmother started working herself into a hissy fit. She said, "I'm glad you all are back. I wanted to tell you how bad off I am doing." She went on about that and my mother finally said, "Do you want to go to bed?"

"I don't want to do anything."

Then she sat there for a while with her hand over her eyes and her head down. She looked up and said, accusingly, "You know how you feel when you don't feel good."

"Yeah, I do. I lay down," responds my mother.

My grandmother ignores this, like she does any statement that doesn't suit her.

All day long, whenever my mother's around, she says or does whatever she can to display to us how miserable she is. My father points out she's doing the same thing here that she does at home. Watch TV, go to the bathroom. That's it. Except now she's out and wasn't it nice to be out of the house?

Apparently not. She finally said, "This time next year, I'm not doing this again. This is my last trip."

You got that right!

We finally stuck her back in her rocking chair in the bedroom watching TV and went back out on the deck to watch the turtles and the bass again. Now I'm back upstairs in my awful awful bed. Earlier I noticed that my ceiling fan has actually become detached from the ceiling and is merely hanging on by it's wires, so I opted to turn that off and turn on a desk fan instead. I took sleeping pills because I intend on actually sleeping tonight. It's been a long day.

It's interesting going on vacation with your family. I have fun with my family, and I enjoy sitting and talking to them. But then there's the bickering between family members, and my grandmother bound and determined to be miserable until we get home and doing everything she can to prove it.

I hope it stops raining tomorrow and we can actually go to the pool longer than twenty or thirty minutes.

I'll be home soon. You're all doing so well without me, but I know it's difficult. Let it out. I won't tell anyone.

Vacation

Tomorrow morning I am leaving to go on vacation. It's probably not going to be as much fun as that sounds like, except for that I'm not going to work. I'm going with my parents to a lake in Kentucky, coming back Wednesday afternoon.

Basically, I'm going to be spending three days in an enclosed space with the same people that I see every day as it is, with no internet, and no car of my own. And it's supposed to rain all three days.

I hope it doesn't. I'd actually like to, you know, do stuff. Swim. Rent a boat. That sort of thing.

Anyway. Ya'll try not to miss me too much. I know it'll be hard. But you'll survive. You're strong. Don't be afraid to cry.

Dating Profile

Your dating personality profile: Shy - You are often timid around others, though you will open up when the right person comes along. Funny - You laugh often. People never accuse you of lacking a sense of humor. You don't take yourself too seriously. Big-Hearted - You are a kind and caring person. Your warmth is inviting, and your heart is a wellspring of love.

Your date match profile: Big-Hearted - You want someone compassionate, someone gentle and kind. A loving, nurturing person will fill that hole in your life. Practical - You are drawn to people who are sensible and smart. Flashy, materialistic people turn you off. You appreciate the simpler side of living. Funny - You consider a good sense of humor a major necessity in a date. If his jokes make you laugh, he has won your heart.

Your Top Ten Traits 1. Shy 2. Funny 3. Big-Hearted 4. Practical 5. Romantic 6. Liberal 7. Adventurous 8. Traditional 9. Intellectual 10. Wealthy/Ambitious

Your Top Ten Match Traits 1. Big-Hearted 2. Practical 3. Funny 4. Conservative 5. Shy 6. Romantic 7. Traditional 8. Intellectual 9. Adventurous 10. Sensual

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