Hey, ho, Way to go......State that we were visiting

So we're back.

The trip was long. Travel-wise, anyway. We went to two extra states (Kentucky and Minnesota) for plane changes and layovers, we flew over ten hours in 4 days. Ugh.

I learned something about myself while we were gone.

I am an elitist and a snob. About food.

This place--So much white food. Everything prepackaged, processed, premade. Plastic cheese, premade frozen mashed potatoes, margarine. White bread. Ice berg lettuce. Fried everything. I cooked a lot while I was there, but it was hard because if I didn't go to the store myself, I was left with weird ingredients that I'd never heard of that only resembled what I needed in color. (I was asked to make pumpkin cheesecake. I asked for maple syrup and solid pack canned pumpkin. I received Log Cabin maple flavored syrup and pumpkin pie filling (pre sweetened).) It was interesting. (Oh, and there is a dish called 'Baked Steak' that is just that--only it's steak, covered in 6 cans of undiluted full salt golden mushroom soup and then baked. To say I was thirsty is an understatement.)

I loved T's family. Hilarious, angry people who chain smoke, do crossword puzzles and drink. How T's dad fits in I'm not really sure.

Grandma was SO happy. I made her birthday cake. (We put a 9 and a 2 on it, rather than 92 actual candles. She thanked us, as she wasn't even sure that she could 'blow out two candles and keep her teeth in'.) She was so happy to see T and J, to meet me, to see our wedding photos. She showed us this giant box of pictures of all of T's siblings from birth to now that she has kept for the last 40 years, T's parents wedding photos, pictures from when T's dad and his sisters were kids growing up. She told us about when T's oldest brother was born (the only kid born there), and T's dad had to go right back to work, leaving T's mom alone with the baby. Grandma was there, she didn't want to interfere, she said, but R (the baby) did nothing but cry, and cry, and cry. Nothing T's mom did would quiet him, and she was so exhausted. So grandma went and took the baby, telling T's mom to go to bed and get some rest, not to worry. She took the baby, wrapped him as tight as she could in a blanket and sat in a rocking chair singing to him. (A lullaby she remembers, that she sang to us right then and there) Finally the baby went to sleep and she took him to his bassinet in the bedroom where T's mom was passed out asleep, fully clothed on the bed with all the lights on. She covered her with a blanket, turned out the lights, and was happy.

Then she told us about how she rocked and sang to all the kids when they were babies. How each one of those kids were blessings.

This is stuff that J and T had never heard before, that they were blessings, that their grandma sang to them and rocked them. That someone had saved pictures of them from birth and remembered each one.

****************************************

I got to see the world's largest basket. That's something. I was rather excited about the whole thing.

****************************************

There is MORE work drama, but I'm not really feeling like going into it right now. Mostly I'm just happy to be home, in my freezing cold house watching Intervention in my bathrobe.