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So, tomorrow morning early-like we're hitting the oily black roads of America for yet another amazing and mind-blowing trek in the truck. We're going to my parents and to a family reunion over the weekend, and then out to the wild, wooly western stretches of Pennsylvania for a 5 day visit across the hills of Beaver Valley. Someone commented to me that we "get away a lot," like it was something odd or weird. She said, "I haven't gone away in a few years. I honestly wouldn't be sure where I'd want to go." And that got me to thinking...

We do get away a lot. Mostly to Family (ie: Relatives) destinations, or to Aaron and Michelle's house. Our trip to the Outer Banks was the first non-family vacation we'd taken since 2001 when we went to Arizona and Utah. The person speaking with me lives within a half hour of her entire family, and she sees them just about every other weekend. They'll all be at her house for a party this weekend. In August, it is grampa's 90th, so there's a big family thing in Southern New Hampshire.

She's doing every 7 to 14 days what we do twice or thrice a year. We schedule our trips around the relations. We tend to see my parents more, because they're geographically easier to get to (5 hours) and to be honest heading out to Western PA is a haul and a half. We stay at a hotel, so it costs us a lot of money. So we don't do it nearly as often as conscience and good family values and love would probably require us to.

In fact, this week trip will cost us more than it cost us to rent the obscenely huge house we scored in April in North Carolina. We have to kennel the dogs, that'll cost us a pantload of dough. Gas is ridiculously expensive. Hotel and then eating elsewhere, that will add up after several days.

So yeah. It's gonna run us close to a grand this week, by my guestimate. But... it's family and sometimes visiting comes at a cost.

Doug has a grandma who lives in Ohio. I know we'll take her to lunch at Das Dutch Haus and spend a whole day there watching Geoff do his monkey shine and whine that he's bored. When we go see her, she always cries when we leave, which breaks my heart. "It's been so long since I seen ya, honey," she says as her gnarled hand squeezes mine and the tears start. "I don't know if I'll get a chance to see ya again at this rate."

When we travel back and I see her, I always say "See, Middie? I told you I'd see you again." She smiles and she's so happy.

And then we leave.

Our friend CJK lost his father this week after a long illness. Compared to both Doug's grandmothers, Mr. K was very young, too young to die and too young to have fought the kind of battle over the last decade that he had. I remember meeting him, the only time I got to, at CJK and CA(T)K's wedding. I think he was talking to my husband for quite a while, and then turned to me and said "Who is that nice young man?" So I filled him in and he was surprised...

"Oh! Doug!" he then pondered. "I haven't seen him in years!" And he smiled.

"And who are you?"

CJK and CA(T)K are out there helping with arrangements and the like. We'll miss the funeral, and we'll miss them by one day, it seems. Hopefully we'll catch them on our way home.

Because it sucks to not be able to see friends.

My friend Mare in California recently took her mom in. Dad H. died in 1988, and Momma H. moved to South Carolina after selling the house on John Davies Lane, where they raised five beautiful daughters together. Life was good in South Carolina, until she got a boyfriend... and slowly over time, the boyfriend spent all of her money. Momma H. had no idea, and was left with almost nothing in the end. So Mare and her sisters talked it over, and she drove out there and "saved momma." Momma H. has pre-dementia, and over the past few years her condition has gotten worse, to the point where she sometimes isn't sure what the hell is going on. Mare's got a long journey ahead of her, but I praise her for taking her mom in, and having the space and heart with which to do so.

I talked to Momma H. recently, and she went on and on about how happy she is living with Mare and the four boys (yes, she had five daughters, and one of them goes and has four sons!) and what a happy place it is and how fun it is to be there. She talked with me for like a half hour before I finally said "Barb, do you even know who this is on the phone?"

"You're one of Mare's friends. I'm not sure who though, but if you're Mare's friend you're okay by me!"

I told her who I was and she was all excited it was me, and asked after my parents to see if they were still in our hometown. It was like a light went off... not only was she happy about where she was, but hey! A memory that is still there! Mare told me those are rare.

Old people are sometimes really cute. Sometimes they are just downright nasty. Doug works with them daily, and he tells me stories that crack me up to no end. Once he asked a woman if she was having any problems, and she yelled at him "I don't have any problems! SEXUAL OR OTHERWISE!!!"

Uh, okay!

I don't want the chance to be a woman in a home. Seriously. I don't want to have some illegal alien wiping my ass while bitching to her friend who is standing there (in Creole or Spanish or whatever) about how fat and disgusting I am. I don't want someone taking all my money from my checking account while I think life is rosy and joyful. I don't want to look at my kids' friends and wonder "Who the hell is THAT guy?"

And I don't want to hold my grandson's wife's hand and cry because I won't see her for a good long time, or, won't ever see her again.

So yeah, we get away. We deserve it, and our families deserve it. Our families deserve to get to know our kids, to realize Geoff is difficult sometimes but a lot of the time he's just hysterically funny. I feel as if you folks reading this know my kids better than our family in Pennsylvania.

And that makes me really, deeply and honestly sad.

You won't hear from me for a while. I should be able to write Sunday night when we return. Or, sometime Monday. Until then, the Archives are not quite finished in their reconstruction, so if you want a little dose of something, feel free to visit the days of yesteryear.

Go call your grandma. She misses you.