malkav11

Well, I'm back. As of Thursday evening, actually, but I'm lazy and don't update this nearly as frequently as I ought to. I didn't wind up getting to spend as much quality time with my parents as I had maybe originally anticipated - nor did I really wind up helping them with the upcoming move, as their project for the week wound up being painting the guest room so that it was presentable when they tried to sell the house (they had a closet removed from the wall in there, which damaged the paint and they hadn't gotten around to fixing that before now). And there wasn't a lot I could contribute to the painting, nor did it leave all that much time to spend with me. Still, I did get some visiting done, especially with my grandparents. They are definitely getting old - my grandfather's eyesight is deteriorating (which prompted him to get a gigantic HDTV), and my grandmother's starting to get a bit hard of hearing, though she denies it. (My grandfather's hearing has been shot for years, but with hearing aids he does all right.) Still, they're a lot more active and engaged than most older people I've known. They're not nearly as computer-savvy as I am, naturally (I helped them out with a few computer things over the weekend), but they make regular use of them and other high technology. I was trying to convince grandpa to build his own DVR - he looked at Tivo and wanted none of the monthly fees - we'll see if that took.

We did the handover from my grandparents to my parents at the Amana Colonies. I don't really hold with the Amana, or the Amish, or any of those lot. I'm absolutely a creature of modern times, high technology, and utter disregard for spirituality and/or God. But I will say that their "family dining" restaurants, where they bring out trays full of meat and bowls full of sides, as much as you want, are pretty excellent. And unlike many restaurants that promise "family dining" experiences, that actually felt like it. Or like eating at my grandparents' house, anyway. Mom never went in for the big multi-course dinners with everyone there. She does enjoy cooking, but her energy level hasn't been up to anything fancy in ages - Jeff does the cooking in their household now - and anyway, nobody else is up in Minnesota, the gathering point's always been Iowa, and thus my grandmother has been the architect of the big holiday dinners in the past. Though the duty's kind of fallen to my aunt Lisa as grandma's gotten older.

And for my birthday, we went out to a local deli (with really excellent sandwiches), then visited a local independent video game store where my parents bought me several (used) games of my choice for my present(s), then had ice cream at the Whitey's in the mall. Then they went back to painting. Oh well.

Other than that, I did a lot of reading.