Parasols on parade
Adventures with grandma--cut for length
Today was the day the family went up to Lake Geneva. If dad had had his way, we'd have left at 7 this morning; I figured 8 would be better. Our goal ended up being 8:30; we pulled out of the driveway at 8:45. An hour and a half later, we arrived. Dad decided to take 31 up instead of 47 because he thinks it's more interesting--more trees, fewer fields. It was a nice change of pace, plus we got to see the wackiest marquee ever. Seriously, if you're northbound on 31 through downtown Elgin, north of the boat, it'll be on your left side. You can't see it southbound. It's like 20 lines long and completely nonsensical. Buy four, get the fifth free, except you can't get the third, and musical chairs, and...yeah. Also, we eventually ended up on 14, and there's this large wind turbine between Virginia and the hospital. I don't recall ever seeing one before.
Grandma called right before we left to tell us she was leaving; I'll bet she was surprised to discover we were leaving, too! Mom was actually just about to call *her*. I heard mom say that we were going to park in the lot we always park in, by Egg Harbor, and we'd meet her there. Well, we arrived and parked and mom went to find a public washroom, and right after she left her phone rang; it was grandma wondering where we were. Uh, in the lot where we said we'd be. She went, but *I'm* here *too*! Uh, no--she was in a lot a block over. Seriously, I'm 99% sure mom specified the lot, because it's good to do that with grandma, and she still went to the wrong place. Later she'd say that she can never find parking there, yet she gets there early enough that there's plenty of parking. Half the lot was empty. Luckily she'd forgotten to bring quarters and was busy scrounging for some so she hadn't put any in a meter, so she drove to where we were--and parked in the first spot she saw, not near us like she'd planned. Sigh. My grandmother totally has her own agenda. And despite reminding my mother to bring quarters she hadn't brought any herself, and she also forgot mom's card, even though this was a Memorial Day/birthday celebration. Mom said later, you may think I'm bad, but my mother forgot my birthday. Okay, I'll give you that one...this week. (Besides, the twins get baptized next week, so it's not like we won't see her for months.)
Grandma may have her own agenda; mom inherited that from her. She likes to call me controlling, but she likes to take the reins on certain occasions. This was one of them. She kept mentioning Egg Harbor, which, I'm sorry, is idiotic. We live 5-10 minutes from one; why do we need to drive to another state to eat the same food? Mom's all, but *grandma* likes it and she doesn't have one by her. Well, okay, but our house is still closer than Wisconsin. Seriously. And the only difference between Geneva and Lake Geneva is the lake itself; Geneva's body of water is the river. And Geneva is FAR less crowded than Lake Geneva because half of Chicagoland doesn't go there on weekends during the summer. Sigh. But Egg Harbor was fine, and mom pulled her order-two-entrees bit. One entree is more than filling, and it was over 90F outside--you really don't want to put something in a to-go container when you're not going right home. We did manage to finish off the second entree, a plate of pancakes, but let me tell you I'm still not very hungry and that was hours ago. Oh, and I had essentially three glasses of iced tea, so again with the bathrooms, though this time it was my father asking if everything was okay. It was probably because the last time he went there he got sick, but no, just 3 cups of fluid in a 1-cup bladder, that's all. And grandma, in her infinite wisdom, ordered the "Mexican breakfast." There was no such item on the menu, and grandma didn't bother to open up her menu to find out what she actually wanted; I suspect the Chilaquiles. She got the Meggsican skillet. (Checking the menu online, that's exactly what happened.) Mom's first entree came with a fruit cup; grandma's didn't. She mildly complained, and the waitress apologized and said that no, that skillet came with potatoes and a flour tortilla. Grandma really remembered the fruit cup and I told her she'd ordered the wrong thing. This is why we remember what we order or else order with the menu open. I swear, sometimes it's like dealing with a child. Grandma was the baby of her family, and I wouldn't doubt that her sisters did a crapload of stuff for her when she was little. Consider grandma would have been in Wisconsin sooner except she had to turn around and get her hearing aids. You'd think you'd be able to notice that you couldn't hear anything, but whatever.
We gave grandma her gifts at the restaurant and convinced her to put the little bag in her car so she wouldn't have to carry it around all day. She was like, oh, it's not heavy, but we were so close to the car we might as well, and besides she is prone to forgetting things (see above). The less you carry, the less you risk losing. And she just tosses it on her front seat--where she should be sitting--instead of at least in the passenger seat. I mean, come on, take two extra seconds and make less work for yourself. This is where mom gets it from and it drives me nuts. Anyway, after that we started walking around for a bit. Mom and grandma wanted to pop into a few shops along the route, and the first one was sort of Lake Geneva's version of the Little Traveler--one great big shop that was split into multiple rooms, each filled with different items. There was a card area, a garden area, a bridal area (which had a really pretty wedding gown in it, except as of yet I'd have no reason to wear one), a kids' area, etc. I'm not even sure I saw all the rooms. I typically don't care for the things in the Little Traveler--either not my style or too old-lady-ish--but this place had some really nice, interesting stuff. I have an acquaintance named Maria, and I saw something that reminded me of her--a frog reading a book. She loves both. Unfortunately she doesn't live in the area (not that I had the money to buy it, either); otherwise I might have picked it up or at least mentioned where to pick it up to her. Also, this place had a French-tinged corner, and I was all excited to be able to read some of what was there, like "Jardin de fleur, printemps et ete." Flower garden, spring and summer. Whee!
Most of the other stores I didn't go into; dad and I sat on sunny benches while mom and grandma poked around. Also, grandma carried with her a parasol, which was an unusual sight, but it was so warm and sunny that any comments we heard were along the lines of, why didn't we think of that? Dad kept trying to get a picture of her with it and ended up with a cute one. She'd noticed he kept pointing the camera at the doors of the stores she was leaving, so I finally mentioned he was trying to get her picture with the parasol. Hint for dad: Grandma doesn't mind the paparazzi. She willingly posed.
We went to a little indoor mall after that, and then grandma had had enough of Lake Geneva; we'd been there about three hours by then and the meter was about to expire. By then the parking lot was full and someone ended up waiting for her to pull out; this was why her seat not being clean was annoying, because between that, and her and mom talking, and grandma just generally taking a while to get driving, it took her a couple of minutes to pull out. Dad told the driver of the waiting car that she's 80; it may be a while. (She's only 78. Don't you dare say she's 80 already. Oh, her age came up with a stranger at one point, right after dad took her picture. Some lady sitting on a bench with me commented on the parasol, then asked how old grandma was. I said, she just turned 78, but she'll tell you she's 49. That someone would up her age, not lower it, could cause that someone physical harm. Just sayin'.)
If I haven't mentioned it recently, grandma used to have a place on the outskirts of town, so when she pops up that way she likes to check out her old haunts, like, say, Goodwill in the next town. We stayed for a couple more hours after she left and went back down by the beach and to a few more stores. Dad and I had to stop at the candy store. He picked up over a pound of gummi sweets. We'll be eating it for days. Alas, no Swedish fish or gummi raspberries, but we did get sour peaches and watermelons. (It's watermelon day, as when we got home, dad made this watermelon salad, and I even had a watermelon drink. And I'm the person that dislikes melon. Maybe the sun got to me.) My parents kept remarking that the crowd seemed larger than usual. It really seemed about the same to me, though there was a long line to get into the beach, for which you have to pay to enter. Let's see, it's a holiday weekend, and it's unusually warm; of course people are going to want to swim and hang out. And most people were in a pleasant mood, with two exceptions. One was the mom who was loudly berating and occasionally smacking her son on the grass outside the library, adjacent to the beach. The second was the reason Illinois drivers have a bad reputation in Wisconsin. It was this dude in a minivan continuously honking at someone who appeared to be trying to pull out of a diagonal parking spot onto busy Highway 50. He was so obnoxious that multiple people were yelling at him to shut up. And it's not like the people were right in front of him; he was a few cars back. I almost started beating on his car, I was so annoyed. I mean, seriously--you've expressed your displeasure; how do you think you're helping the situation?
It was only 3 when we got in the car to leave, and we thought we were taking a road that would lead us to a light that would take us around the back end of town to avoid the type of traffic Obnoxious Guy was causing. Nope; the road turned and met back up with 50, and it was right-turn-only onto 50, so that was not helpful. It took way too long to get out of town. And then we decided to take the scenic route home, so we went west on B/BB (it's both at different points) to 14, claiming we were looking for cheap gas. We found it, in Walworth--$2.67! Consider all three gas stations between here and the grocery store were $2.89 last night. It was at a BP, even, which is usually expensive; we figured they priced the gas that cheaply in order to keep customers who might otherwise boycott them due to the Gulf situation. (Worse, there was a Citgo right next door charging the same price, but we saw the BP first since it was on the corner of B and 14.) It's kind of fun taking that route, if only for the itty-bitty towns you drive through. Along B is unincorporated Linton, which seriously has five buildings in it. And just over the state line is Big Foot, small enough that the Welcome to Illinois sign doesn't appear until *after* you've driven through it. (It's twice as big as Linton. I think there are more buildings on the Wisconsin side, though.)
We kind of played a game on the way home--where can we find coffee and mint? Woodman's was out of mint entirely last night; it's an ingredient in the melon salad we made. There was some sort of market between Walworth and Big Foot, so we figured we'd try there, except it's closed since the last time we'd been that way. I kept joking that we should stop at some random farm and just pick a few leaves, but ultimately we forgot about the mint. Coffee became more important, so we were on constant lookout for a Starbucks or Caribou, which of course are both in Lake Geneva. Wouldn't you know it, we didn't see a single one along our route. There were tiny coffee places we passed, but none seemed to be open; dad so opposed stopping at McDonald's that I asked if he'd hurt himself. In Huntley we figured there must be something near the outlet mall, so we turned into one of the strip malls; nope. There was a Jewel (hey, mint!), but they generally don't have ready-made coffee to go (or at least not in normal sizes; the one by our house impressed my parents when we first moved in because they had free samples at all times). There was also a Culver's in that area but dad didn't care to stop there, nor at any of the multiple gas stations we passed. By that point we were close enough to home that my parents chose to forgo stopping for coffee--plus, there wouldn't be much along the rest of the ride anyway. No point in looking.
We ended up behind this dippy driver, whom dad and I figured was texting or something because she was too busy looking down at something to pay attention to stoplights changing. We thought we were going to get rid of her, as she put on her turn signal at one point, except she had the wrong street and turned down Burlington Road with us. Worse, we ended up with a hay truck in front of both of us that could only go 30/35 miles an hour. Sigh. And when I suggested dad keep taking the road through LaFox, we ended up getting caught by a train that had stopped completely. (LaFox = Size of Big Foot) We had to turn around, which caused my parents to tease me, particularly my mother, for making poor, un-adult choices...and then she proceeded to act like a 4-year-old. It's a good thing she didn't have caffeine, because she'd already had sugar, which turns her obnoxious. Please keep your feet in the backseat where the rest of your body is, thank you.
We got home at 5 and have been chilling ever since. Normally dad and I walk around a lot when we're up there, but because of his knee we figured that would be a bad idea. He did wear a knee brace the whole day, and apparently sunlight helps to rid the body of built-up fluid, so when we got home he said the knee seemed less swollen. That's a good thing. And he doesn't have to work tomorrow, which means he'll get to rest it even more. If it doesn't rain, we'll probably try to do more work outside. That's probably not great for his knee, but it's not as bad as work.
Today was the day the family went up to Lake Geneva. If dad had had his way, we'd have left at 7 this morning; I figured 8 would be better. Our goal ended up being 8:30; we pulled out of the driveway at 8:45. An hour and a half later, we arrived. Dad decided to take 31 up instead of 47 because he thinks it's more interesting--more trees, fewer fields. It was a nice change of pace, plus we got to see the wackiest marquee ever. Seriously, if you're northbound on 31 through downtown Elgin, north of the boat, it'll be on your left side. You can't see it southbound. It's like 20 lines long and completely nonsensical. Buy four, get the fifth free, except you can't get the third, and musical chairs, and...yeah. Also, we eventually ended up on 14, and there's this large wind turbine between Virginia and the hospital. I don't recall ever seeing one before.
Grandma called right before we left to tell us she was leaving; I'll bet she was surprised to discover we were leaving, too! Mom was actually just about to call *her*. I heard mom say that we were going to park in the lot we always park in, by Egg Harbor, and we'd meet her there. Well, we arrived and parked and mom went to find a public washroom, and right after she left her phone rang; it was grandma wondering where we were. Uh, in the lot where we said we'd be. She went, but *I'm* here *too*! Uh, no--she was in a lot a block over. Seriously, I'm 99% sure mom specified the lot, because it's good to do that with grandma, and she still went to the wrong place. Later she'd say that she can never find parking there, yet she gets there early enough that there's plenty of parking. Half the lot was empty. Luckily she'd forgotten to bring quarters and was busy scrounging for some so she hadn't put any in a meter, so she drove to where we were--and parked in the first spot she saw, not near us like she'd planned. Sigh. My grandmother totally has her own agenda. And despite reminding my mother to bring quarters she hadn't brought any herself, and she also forgot mom's card, even though this was a Memorial Day/birthday celebration. Mom said later, you may think I'm bad, but my mother forgot my birthday. Okay, I'll give you that one...this week. (Besides, the twins get baptized next week, so it's not like we won't see her for months.)
Grandma may have her own agenda; mom inherited that from her. She likes to call me controlling, but she likes to take the reins on certain occasions. This was one of them. She kept mentioning Egg Harbor, which, I'm sorry, is idiotic. We live 5-10 minutes from one; why do we need to drive to another state to eat the same food? Mom's all, but *grandma* likes it and she doesn't have one by her. Well, okay, but our house is still closer than Wisconsin. Seriously. And the only difference between Geneva and Lake Geneva is the lake itself; Geneva's body of water is the river. And Geneva is FAR less crowded than Lake Geneva because half of Chicagoland doesn't go there on weekends during the summer. Sigh. But Egg Harbor was fine, and mom pulled her order-two-entrees bit. One entree is more than filling, and it was over 90F outside--you really don't want to put something in a to-go container when you're not going right home. We did manage to finish off the second entree, a plate of pancakes, but let me tell you I'm still not very hungry and that was hours ago. Oh, and I had essentially three glasses of iced tea, so again with the bathrooms, though this time it was my father asking if everything was okay. It was probably because the last time he went there he got sick, but no, just 3 cups of fluid in a 1-cup bladder, that's all. And grandma, in her infinite wisdom, ordered the "Mexican breakfast." There was no such item on the menu, and grandma didn't bother to open up her menu to find out what she actually wanted; I suspect the Chilaquiles. She got the Meggsican skillet. (Checking the menu online, that's exactly what happened.) Mom's first entree came with a fruit cup; grandma's didn't. She mildly complained, and the waitress apologized and said that no, that skillet came with potatoes and a flour tortilla. Grandma really remembered the fruit cup and I told her she'd ordered the wrong thing. This is why we remember what we order or else order with the menu open. I swear, sometimes it's like dealing with a child. Grandma was the baby of her family, and I wouldn't doubt that her sisters did a crapload of stuff for her when she was little. Consider grandma would have been in Wisconsin sooner except she had to turn around and get her hearing aids. You'd think you'd be able to notice that you couldn't hear anything, but whatever.
We gave grandma her gifts at the restaurant and convinced her to put the little bag in her car so she wouldn't have to carry it around all day. She was like, oh, it's not heavy, but we were so close to the car we might as well, and besides she is prone to forgetting things (see above). The less you carry, the less you risk losing. And she just tosses it on her front seat--where she should be sitting--instead of at least in the passenger seat. I mean, come on, take two extra seconds and make less work for yourself. This is where mom gets it from and it drives me nuts. Anyway, after that we started walking around for a bit. Mom and grandma wanted to pop into a few shops along the route, and the first one was sort of Lake Geneva's version of the Little Traveler--one great big shop that was split into multiple rooms, each filled with different items. There was a card area, a garden area, a bridal area (which had a really pretty wedding gown in it, except as of yet I'd have no reason to wear one), a kids' area, etc. I'm not even sure I saw all the rooms. I typically don't care for the things in the Little Traveler--either not my style or too old-lady-ish--but this place had some really nice, interesting stuff. I have an acquaintance named Maria, and I saw something that reminded me of her--a frog reading a book. She loves both. Unfortunately she doesn't live in the area (not that I had the money to buy it, either); otherwise I might have picked it up or at least mentioned where to pick it up to her. Also, this place had a French-tinged corner, and I was all excited to be able to read some of what was there, like "Jardin de fleur, printemps et ete." Flower garden, spring and summer. Whee!
Most of the other stores I didn't go into; dad and I sat on sunny benches while mom and grandma poked around. Also, grandma carried with her a parasol, which was an unusual sight, but it was so warm and sunny that any comments we heard were along the lines of, why didn't we think of that? Dad kept trying to get a picture of her with it and ended up with a cute one. She'd noticed he kept pointing the camera at the doors of the stores she was leaving, so I finally mentioned he was trying to get her picture with the parasol. Hint for dad: Grandma doesn't mind the paparazzi. She willingly posed.
We went to a little indoor mall after that, and then grandma had had enough of Lake Geneva; we'd been there about three hours by then and the meter was about to expire. By then the parking lot was full and someone ended up waiting for her to pull out; this was why her seat not being clean was annoying, because between that, and her and mom talking, and grandma just generally taking a while to get driving, it took her a couple of minutes to pull out. Dad told the driver of the waiting car that she's 80; it may be a while. (She's only 78. Don't you dare say she's 80 already. Oh, her age came up with a stranger at one point, right after dad took her picture. Some lady sitting on a bench with me commented on the parasol, then asked how old grandma was. I said, she just turned 78, but she'll tell you she's 49. That someone would up her age, not lower it, could cause that someone physical harm. Just sayin'.)
If I haven't mentioned it recently, grandma used to have a place on the outskirts of town, so when she pops up that way she likes to check out her old haunts, like, say, Goodwill in the next town. We stayed for a couple more hours after she left and went back down by the beach and to a few more stores. Dad and I had to stop at the candy store. He picked up over a pound of gummi sweets. We'll be eating it for days. Alas, no Swedish fish or gummi raspberries, but we did get sour peaches and watermelons. (It's watermelon day, as when we got home, dad made this watermelon salad, and I even had a watermelon drink. And I'm the person that dislikes melon. Maybe the sun got to me.) My parents kept remarking that the crowd seemed larger than usual. It really seemed about the same to me, though there was a long line to get into the beach, for which you have to pay to enter. Let's see, it's a holiday weekend, and it's unusually warm; of course people are going to want to swim and hang out. And most people were in a pleasant mood, with two exceptions. One was the mom who was loudly berating and occasionally smacking her son on the grass outside the library, adjacent to the beach. The second was the reason Illinois drivers have a bad reputation in Wisconsin. It was this dude in a minivan continuously honking at someone who appeared to be trying to pull out of a diagonal parking spot onto busy Highway 50. He was so obnoxious that multiple people were yelling at him to shut up. And it's not like the people were right in front of him; he was a few cars back. I almost started beating on his car, I was so annoyed. I mean, seriously--you've expressed your displeasure; how do you think you're helping the situation?
It was only 3 when we got in the car to leave, and we thought we were taking a road that would lead us to a light that would take us around the back end of town to avoid the type of traffic Obnoxious Guy was causing. Nope; the road turned and met back up with 50, and it was right-turn-only onto 50, so that was not helpful. It took way too long to get out of town. And then we decided to take the scenic route home, so we went west on B/BB (it's both at different points) to 14, claiming we were looking for cheap gas. We found it, in Walworth--$2.67! Consider all three gas stations between here and the grocery store were $2.89 last night. It was at a BP, even, which is usually expensive; we figured they priced the gas that cheaply in order to keep customers who might otherwise boycott them due to the Gulf situation. (Worse, there was a Citgo right next door charging the same price, but we saw the BP first since it was on the corner of B and 14.) It's kind of fun taking that route, if only for the itty-bitty towns you drive through. Along B is unincorporated Linton, which seriously has five buildings in it. And just over the state line is Big Foot, small enough that the Welcome to Illinois sign doesn't appear until *after* you've driven through it. (It's twice as big as Linton. I think there are more buildings on the Wisconsin side, though.)
We kind of played a game on the way home--where can we find coffee and mint? Woodman's was out of mint entirely last night; it's an ingredient in the melon salad we made. There was some sort of market between Walworth and Big Foot, so we figured we'd try there, except it's closed since the last time we'd been that way. I kept joking that we should stop at some random farm and just pick a few leaves, but ultimately we forgot about the mint. Coffee became more important, so we were on constant lookout for a Starbucks or Caribou, which of course are both in Lake Geneva. Wouldn't you know it, we didn't see a single one along our route. There were tiny coffee places we passed, but none seemed to be open; dad so opposed stopping at McDonald's that I asked if he'd hurt himself. In Huntley we figured there must be something near the outlet mall, so we turned into one of the strip malls; nope. There was a Jewel (hey, mint!), but they generally don't have ready-made coffee to go (or at least not in normal sizes; the one by our house impressed my parents when we first moved in because they had free samples at all times). There was also a Culver's in that area but dad didn't care to stop there, nor at any of the multiple gas stations we passed. By that point we were close enough to home that my parents chose to forgo stopping for coffee--plus, there wouldn't be much along the rest of the ride anyway. No point in looking.
We ended up behind this dippy driver, whom dad and I figured was texting or something because she was too busy looking down at something to pay attention to stoplights changing. We thought we were going to get rid of her, as she put on her turn signal at one point, except she had the wrong street and turned down Burlington Road with us. Worse, we ended up with a hay truck in front of both of us that could only go 30/35 miles an hour. Sigh. And when I suggested dad keep taking the road through LaFox, we ended up getting caught by a train that had stopped completely. (LaFox = Size of Big Foot) We had to turn around, which caused my parents to tease me, particularly my mother, for making poor, un-adult choices...and then she proceeded to act like a 4-year-old. It's a good thing she didn't have caffeine, because she'd already had sugar, which turns her obnoxious. Please keep your feet in the backseat where the rest of your body is, thank you.
We got home at 5 and have been chilling ever since. Normally dad and I walk around a lot when we're up there, but because of his knee we figured that would be a bad idea. He did wear a knee brace the whole day, and apparently sunlight helps to rid the body of built-up fluid, so when we got home he said the knee seemed less swollen. That's a good thing. And he doesn't have to work tomorrow, which means he'll get to rest it even more. If it doesn't rain, we'll probably try to do more work outside. That's probably not great for his knee, but it's not as bad as work.