What The Family
My mother and step-dad seemed excited to visit when Carey and I moved to Chicagoland. Right away Jim started pre-planning a trip that would include a stop at a nearby timeshare.
But my mom didn't like the timeshare. She wanted to stay at our place. I told her about a hundred different times that we don't get paid time off until we have been working here for six months, so if they stayed with us as long as they wanted to (a week), they'd be spending a lot of time on their own while Carey and I were at work. Then my mother phoned me one day and asked imperiously what kind of "accommodations" we had to offer them when they came to visit, and then requested that I send them an email with our available early fall dates. At this point I started to dread the visit. I felt that my mother's expectations were a bit skewed, and the thought of her mother poking around my condo all day while I was at work was unsettling. But I knew I had to bite the bullet and work it out, so I composed a long email about airports and transportation and "accommodations." For a week, there was no reply. Then I got this email:
Hi Girl,
I know this might sound a little crazy, but Jim wanted to know if we could invite you guys here instead of us going out there. I told him the problem with you guys not having any vacation days, and he said to ask any ways.Jim thought we could pick you both up in Boston, have dinner in the north end and then wine and lobster you two while you're here. We'd take care of the plane tickets and parking fee and the extra for Greta.
I got a feeling the answer is no because of vacation day thing.
Just let me know and we'll get on top of either set of tickets.
Love,
Mom
I seriously didn't know what to make of this email. It was so..... bemusingly illogical. If we were having a tough time finding enough time to spend with them IN OUR OWN HOME, how would building in an entire day of travel help the situation!? They called us and mentioned that we could visit them over the three-day Columbus Day weekend, and that would also give us a chance to see our grandparents. The grandparents part made sense, but if we were talking about utilizing a three-day weekend, I still had no idea why it made more sense to them for us to go there. I wrote back with this email:
Carey and I have talked this over a few times and we're.....kind of stuck. I understand why you guys would like us to visit home, but it seemed like you asked because you were unhappy with the amount of time we had available to spend with you if you were to visit here. If we came to NH, we'd also have to tack on a full day of travel, so we'd have even less time together. I did look up flights that would allow us to spend the most time with you in NH.
If you guys were to come to us on the same weekend and you were ok with renting a car, you could come in Friday afternoon or early evening and meet us at our place (we could leave the keys for you). I could work though my lunch hour and be home to meet you around 4. Then you could fly out at your leisure on Tuesday as long as you didn't need a ride to the airport.
Basically, we can spend all day and night Saturday and Sunday and all day Monday together in NH, or spend Friday evening and all day and night together on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in IL. What sounds better to you guys?
xo
H&C
Can you guess what their reply was? They told us to go ahead and book tickets to fly out to them on Columbus Day, and they'd reimburse us:
"We will pick u up @ Logan. You use our car while you are here. We'll give you $50 to park @ the airport. That way you get to visit more relatives than just us while you are here and your Mom gets to have you both in her home for while."
ME DO NOT UNDERSTAND PARENTS. They are RETIRED. They have nothing going on in their lives. My mother literally cries about how much she misses me. And they choose what's behind door number two, a shorter trip, so that......what? They have home-field advantage? What happened to wanting to see where we live?
After I calmed down and stopped trying to understand, I warmed up to the idea. I do actually want to see my other relatives. There's even a chance my sister, niece, and BIL will try to visit on the same weekend. I have friends I'm dying to see. But I can't help but suspect that my mother will actually begrudge me spending time with other people on such a short trip, despite using that as a selling point. I'm just.....exhausted from trying to deal rationally with them. I bought the tickets. They don't have to be part of my new life if they don't want to. They can just sit home and wait for a visit.
But my mom didn't like the timeshare. She wanted to stay at our place. I told her about a hundred different times that we don't get paid time off until we have been working here for six months, so if they stayed with us as long as they wanted to (a week), they'd be spending a lot of time on their own while Carey and I were at work. Then my mother phoned me one day and asked imperiously what kind of "accommodations" we had to offer them when they came to visit, and then requested that I send them an email with our available early fall dates. At this point I started to dread the visit. I felt that my mother's expectations were a bit skewed, and the thought of her mother poking around my condo all day while I was at work was unsettling. But I knew I had to bite the bullet and work it out, so I composed a long email about airports and transportation and "accommodations." For a week, there was no reply. Then I got this email:
Hi Girl,
I know this might sound a little crazy, but Jim wanted to know if we could invite you guys here instead of us going out there. I told him the problem with you guys not having any vacation days, and he said to ask any ways.Jim thought we could pick you both up in Boston, have dinner in the north end and then wine and lobster you two while you're here. We'd take care of the plane tickets and parking fee and the extra for Greta.
I got a feeling the answer is no because of vacation day thing.
Just let me know and we'll get on top of either set of tickets.
Love,
Mom
I seriously didn't know what to make of this email. It was so..... bemusingly illogical. If we were having a tough time finding enough time to spend with them IN OUR OWN HOME, how would building in an entire day of travel help the situation!? They called us and mentioned that we could visit them over the three-day Columbus Day weekend, and that would also give us a chance to see our grandparents. The grandparents part made sense, but if we were talking about utilizing a three-day weekend, I still had no idea why it made more sense to them for us to go there. I wrote back with this email:
Carey and I have talked this over a few times and we're.....kind of stuck. I understand why you guys would like us to visit home, but it seemed like you asked because you were unhappy with the amount of time we had available to spend with you if you were to visit here. If we came to NH, we'd also have to tack on a full day of travel, so we'd have even less time together. I did look up flights that would allow us to spend the most time with you in NH.
If you guys were to come to us on the same weekend and you were ok with renting a car, you could come in Friday afternoon or early evening and meet us at our place (we could leave the keys for you). I could work though my lunch hour and be home to meet you around 4. Then you could fly out at your leisure on Tuesday as long as you didn't need a ride to the airport.
Basically, we can spend all day and night Saturday and Sunday and all day Monday together in NH, or spend Friday evening and all day and night together on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday in IL. What sounds better to you guys?
xo
H&C
Can you guess what their reply was? They told us to go ahead and book tickets to fly out to them on Columbus Day, and they'd reimburse us:
"We will pick u up @ Logan. You use our car while you are here. We'll give you $50 to park @ the airport. That way you get to visit more relatives than just us while you are here and your Mom gets to have you both in her home for while."
ME DO NOT UNDERSTAND PARENTS. They are RETIRED. They have nothing going on in their lives. My mother literally cries about how much she misses me. And they choose what's behind door number two, a shorter trip, so that......what? They have home-field advantage? What happened to wanting to see where we live?
After I calmed down and stopped trying to understand, I warmed up to the idea. I do actually want to see my other relatives. There's even a chance my sister, niece, and BIL will try to visit on the same weekend. I have friends I'm dying to see. But I can't help but suspect that my mother will actually begrudge me spending time with other people on such a short trip, despite using that as a selling point. I'm just.....exhausted from trying to deal rationally with them. I bought the tickets. They don't have to be part of my new life if they don't want to. They can just sit home and wait for a visit.