Grandpa Joe is 90!

[epilonious]

Dreading the packed weekend

So, I was a bit in the doldrums before the weekend because frankly, I didn't feel like traveling up to Detroit for the second time in less than a month. I had just finished dumping lots of money on Dragon*Con, and I had only had one solitary week with Eric, and this upcoming weekend is AWA. I was not looking forward to another series of packed weekends in a row. It got easier for several reasons, however: My parents were paying for everything, and my family is awesome. It got better, too because I got to meet my dad in the airport, Geoff was able to drive me to the MARTA station, and we were gonna meet my brother in Detroit. Unfortunately mom was sick, but she was better by the next morning...

Fie on Dollar Rent-A-Car!
When my dad, brother, and I got into detroit, my dad had called the Dollar place to see if they would stay open long enough for us to pick up our reservation... they assured us they would be, but when the asshats at Detroit airport took 40 minutes to get the luggage to the claim, the dollar bus was long gone when we got outside. We got on the Avis bus, and I got to hear Dad tell off the Dollar call-center person while cancelling the reservation. Thus concludes this public service announcement: Dollar likes to strand people rather than stay 15 minutes later after they said they would stay. Thus, instead of some Dodge stratus or equivalent, we got a Pontiac Grand Prix. *snicker* It was a lovely rental car.

Recovering Mother and Big Boy
So, after we made it to the hotel and I got to chat with Peyton for a while. It was nice seeing him again and it was neat he was gonna get to see Grandpa. It was about 2:00 AM when I finally fell asleep and I agreed to go with Dad to meet Mom at the airport the next morning. Unfortunately, mom forgot her cellphone and when she called Dad's cellphone it didn't ring. Luckily she called mine and we set up to meet. Because she had been sick all week, we managed to rouse Peyton and we all went to big boy for breakfast. Since I was stuffed full of Holiday Inn express continental breakfast (damn the cinnamon rolls!!) I only got an order of potato pancakes and shared them with everyone else. Note, Big Boy potato pancakes are delicious, and you should get them at the next opportunity. After we were done we headed over to see Grandpa Joe and most of the family arrived at the same time

Grandfather, Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins
We got into Silver Maples and greeted Grandpa Joe about the same time that everyone else did. There was a bunch of warm greetings from then Aunt Amy and Uncle Jim who had brought along my cousin Mike (who has shot up like a weed... and glomped onto us in short order) they were shortly followed by Aunt Susan (who, you'll rememeber was nice enough to take Geoff and I out to dinner one weekday) and my cousin Lucy (who is the daughter of Amy and Jim and the sister of Mike, but was riding with Aunt Susan because she goes to University of Michigan). Lucy is going to college *gasp*. Even though she grew up in Ann Arbor, she chose to go to University of Michigan (as opposed to Michigan State) becuase they have a better education program. This is like going to Georgia Tech despite living in Athens... or like going to Duke despite living in Chapel Hill. But hey, she feels it fits, and she's sick of being asked, thankyouverymuch. The cousins glomped. Otherwise a lot of time was spent giving Grandpa some birthday cards and seeing some of the stuff he had collected for his door: Grandpa Joe is a combination of humanist and big-ol FDR democrat. Thus, I think I get a lot of "it is the governments responsibility to provide lots of opportunities, services, and help" from him. As his birthday present, the Jacob sisters had gotten a lazy-boy, which was a blessing for his back and general comfort. We spent a lot of time just going around and asking questions. Grandpa had some interesting views, but he was always very good about qualifying them as things he had observed... he made his questions actual attempts to gather perspectives from his guests, not just as an attempt to talk about what he thought... It was quite refreshing.

Meatballs and Nifty Elderly Ladies
My dad went shopping for party booze and came back with a lot... I can only assume that he went to trader pollies (since trader joes and pollies had merged, but actually it's called pollies country market) and filled up a shopping cart. So, now that the booze was bought, we loaded everything along with some ice into a tub, and then placed the tub on a wheelchair and rolled it out to Silver Maples' banquet room. My parents were afraid that many of the people wouldn't be able to drink because of medications, but everyone showing up seemed to show a healthy interest in the wines and dark beers. There was a cheese tray and a fruit tray, but there were also some chafing dishes with delicious meatballs and stuffed mushrooms. One of the cool things was talking to all of Grandpa's friends and neighbors, the more liberal ones said he was hilarious, and the more conservative ones said he was controversial... but everyone seemed to like him and liked talking to us. I remember sitting with two ladies in particular who just had fascinating details of various people in the technical industries. They basically knew CEO's as children of friends since they had run businesses themselves. They couldn't give me all the details of what the firms were doing (it sounded like hi-tech consulting), but they pretty much just affirmed that anyone working hard with a pretty good head on their shoulders was able to accomplish a lot. Grandpa's friends had some of the best grips on what will work and what will probably be a mistake, mainly because they had a lot of time to observe really cool events in their lifetime and love talking about them. It makes me want to go back and see grandpa and his friends more. It's interesting, the elderly have some of the best information on the planet, but most young people don't know how to interact with them or make the time. It's like how the old performa 6300 might contain some of your formative work, but you don't have anything that recognizes the old writing program, and even though it seems like the effort isn't worth it to go in and convert it by hand, it is worth it to try.

Interfix and Cousins
After the party, Peyton and I drove home with Amy, Jim, Lucy, and Mike and I got on their new Dell to post a response to a thread on DDR freak while everyone watched an ep of Clarissa explains it all (first season too!). After that we all went out to pinball Pete's in Lucy's Accord. I played DDR and ITG, unfortunately, they had no pump for Peyton.. but they did have tons of pinball. We spent the night at the cousins' house and it was good.

Wonderful Brunch

The next morning, everyone got showered, and then we went by Grandpa Joe's again before heading to the Chelsea Hospital brunch. The Brunch was, of course, delicious... as there was all you can eat belgian waffles and a big caraffe of whipped cream *squee*. After brunch, we sat and talked with Grandpa some more before we finally had to leave. I also managed to catch a framed creedo for Humanism and found out where the hell I got it from.

In by 7:00, home by 9:30
So, we make it to the airport at 4:00-ish, Peyton had to go to a different terminal so we said good bye to him in the avis lot, and then mom said good bye to us at our gate (she was flying back northwest because she had to take them when she felt sick). I got to fly back with dad, made it into the airport by 7:00, and made it up to North springs by 9:30 *grumble*. I'll take special note to pick people up at the airport when possible in the future.

Otherwise, that is about it, and boy am I sick of typing.