Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Dad with the newly stripped bedroom wall

In celebration of my dad's birthday, The Gryphon and I drove to Central Pennsylvania this weekend to spend some time with him.

On Friday night before we left, we got some unexpected news from my brother. He and his wife are expecting a second child.

Ironically, they got this news on the first birthday of their first son. So the whole family was excited, of course. We're already talking about what to expect, a boy or a girl.

We had originally planned on getting there earlier in the afternoon, but then my sister let me know that she and her husband were going to spend two hours helping Dad remove stucco from one of the walls in his room. This was for his birthday present. He's going to be refinishing and repainting that wall. Coincidentally, The Gryphon and I got him a gift certificate to Lowe's to use for redoing his apartment.

So we got there a little later than we might have, closer to 4 p.m. We gave Mom a call. She's been sick lately with something like a stomach flu, so she wouldn't be joining us when we all went out to dinner. But she did tell us she's been doing better and is now eating some solid foods.

We got changed and went out to eat. At first, we were going to try the new Damon's that has opened nearby, but there was a 60- to 70-minute wait so we drove elsewhere. Instead, we went to a little place called Rusty's, a restaurant that's part of a local bar. We didn't realize it, but we would have been better off waiting at Damon's.

Even though they seated us at a table right away, they didn't even bring us bread, and our waitress never explained that they'd run out until we flagged her down and asked her. Then, she promised to check if they were making more but never returned with an answer. We sat there, nursing our drinks and munching our salads and talking for an extremely long time. In fact, we were there for so long I ordered a second beer, which made me kind of silly.

We were actually at that restaurant a good two hours by the time our food was delivered and we'd eaten. Needless to say, the waitress did not get a great tip. Even if there wasn't much she could have done about getting our food out sooner, she could have done more to communicate with us and check in on us while we waited.

My sister and her husband might move to western Maryland, which would be a lot closer to The Gryphon and I. They talked about how these plans would factor into their plans to have children.

The subject of TV also came up, as we were talking about shows we liked. My sister told us they don't have cable and don't care if they ever do. Then we got into a disagreement about whether it's good for kids to have television in the house. We agreed that you shouldn't give them unmonitored access, but we disagreed with my sister's contention that if they're not exposed to it at home, they won't be subject to negative things like commercial brainwashing. They'll simply see it at a friend's house where you won't have any control. We ended up agreeing to disagree.

Other subjects we could agree on, however, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. My sister and her husband are up to watching season four, which is my sister's favorite so far. I liked that one a lot, as well, especially how the characters were interacting.

We had a good time talking to each other, but we were all really hungry and couldn't believe it took us so long to get served. Finally, we headed back to Dad's and called Mom, as promised. I'd told her we'd stop over and spend time with her. Even though it was getting late by her schedule — she likes to get to bed by 10 — we did go over there and socialize for a bit. My sister and her husband left from Mom's house.

Mom was camped out on the couch, eating some microwave popcorn. "I've had eight pieces so far," she announced.

"Good. And you didn't hurl yet," I said. Mom had been keeping me up to date over e-mail with how she's been doing.

"Actually, I haven't since Tuesday." So things were looking up. She definitely seemed to be in better spirits, which was good to see. I had been worried about her.

After we'd been hanging out for awhile, Mom looked up and saw the still image of a forest on her TV. "What is that, a screen saver?"

"That's your DVD player on pause for an hour," I said. She'd been watching a Harry Potter movie when we got there, and my sister put it on pause without telling Mom.

When Mom started to get a little tired, we gave her hugs and headed back to Dad's. The Gryphon, Dad and I played a card game The Gryphon brought, Chrononauts, a card game where you're a time traveler who can alter the time stream and create paradoxes or alternative histories. Of course, just because I am who I am, as often as possible I prevented John Lennon from being assassinated.

We played a few rounds before we all started to tire, said our goodnights and went to bed.

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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