Rather unexpectedly, I'm in ye olde Iowa for the weekend. My grandmother had to move from her assisted living location to a place with more services for advanced dementia, and the move happened today. I had originally not planned to come back for it since there were several other people around to help and she didn't have that much stuff to move....but my good inner midwesterner won out over my desire to stay in Denver and play with my house. So on Monday I ended up booking a flight, and I flew in last night (after a four-hour training at work, which meant I couldn't get to Iowa before 8pm).
[censored] picked me up in Des Moines last night, and we had a late-ish dinner at Johnny's, where I made a valiant attempt to drink exactly the right amount of pinot noir to make me forget how much work I need to do while also forgetting why I had come to Iowa. I failed. Then we came home, I got about as much sleep as possible, and then the fun began.
[editor's note: it wasn't really very much fun]
My dad had the thankless task of driving Gram around for a few hours while the rest of us packed up the stuff that needed to go to her new facility, driving it over to Centerville, unloading it, and setting it up in an attempt to make it feel as familiar to her as possible when she walked in. This, of course, was not entirely successful. I mean, we succeeded in our side of the attempt, but Gram will be confused for awhile. Aunt Becky, Uncle Brian, [censored] and I did all the loading and unloading (and I discovered that I perhaps should be a pro mover, since I can stand up to full height inside a small u-haul trailer). And while we were over in Centerville unloading, my mom and Aunt Kathy took care of cleaning out a lot of the old place.
So, this all took many hours, but it went about as well as it could have. I also discovered that my dad knows the location of every free popcorn option in the area, which is probably a quirk that I'm destined to acquire as well since love of popcorn (especially stale, free popcorn) was one of my grandfather's traits as well and seems to be genetic. We eventually all reconvened in our town to do some more clearing out of stuff (and divvying up a few things that needed to be divvied). The only person who missed out on the divvying was Drewbaby, but he has limited interest in Hummel figurines (or 'action figures', as he called them on the phone), so this was perhaps not his jam.
sssanyway, we eventually had supper at the Mexican restaurant in town, whose v. tasty fajitas (with bacon) and 20oz margarita went a long way toward restoring me. At that point Aunt B and Uncle B went back to Centerville to spend the night in a hotel, but Aunt Kathy came out here and is spending the night with us. So we spent some quality time telling stories around the kitchen bar, and we entertained a call from Drewbaby, who clearly felt like he was missing out on the fun [editor's note: judging by the fact that he'd been drinking and golfing, I doubt he really felt like he's missed out].
And now I should sleep - we have more work to do tomorrow, and I also have some day job stuff and/or writing that I should really take care of (chances that this will happen are slim). I'm headed back to Colorado Sunday morning, so this is a super quick trip - but I'm glad I came, or else I might not have had the pleasure of throwing away an entire drawer full of expired toiletries in varying degrees of grossness (#lucky). Goodnight!
[censored] picked me up in Des Moines last night, and we had a late-ish dinner at Johnny's, where I made a valiant attempt to drink exactly the right amount of pinot noir to make me forget how much work I need to do while also forgetting why I had come to Iowa. I failed. Then we came home, I got about as much sleep as possible, and then the fun began.
[editor's note: it wasn't really very much fun]
My dad had the thankless task of driving Gram around for a few hours while the rest of us packed up the stuff that needed to go to her new facility, driving it over to Centerville, unloading it, and setting it up in an attempt to make it feel as familiar to her as possible when she walked in. This, of course, was not entirely successful. I mean, we succeeded in our side of the attempt, but Gram will be confused for awhile. Aunt Becky, Uncle Brian, [censored] and I did all the loading and unloading (and I discovered that I perhaps should be a pro mover, since I can stand up to full height inside a small u-haul trailer). And while we were over in Centerville unloading, my mom and Aunt Kathy took care of cleaning out a lot of the old place.
So, this all took many hours, but it went about as well as it could have. I also discovered that my dad knows the location of every free popcorn option in the area, which is probably a quirk that I'm destined to acquire as well since love of popcorn (especially stale, free popcorn) was one of my grandfather's traits as well and seems to be genetic. We eventually all reconvened in our town to do some more clearing out of stuff (and divvying up a few things that needed to be divvied). The only person who missed out on the divvying was Drewbaby, but he has limited interest in Hummel figurines (or 'action figures', as he called them on the phone), so this was perhaps not his jam.
sssanyway, we eventually had supper at the Mexican restaurant in town, whose v. tasty fajitas (with bacon) and 20oz margarita went a long way toward restoring me. At that point Aunt B and Uncle B went back to Centerville to spend the night in a hotel, but Aunt Kathy came out here and is spending the night with us. So we spent some quality time telling stories around the kitchen bar, and we entertained a call from Drewbaby, who clearly felt like he was missing out on the fun [editor's note: judging by the fact that he'd been drinking and golfing, I doubt he really felt like he's missed out].
And now I should sleep - we have more work to do tomorrow, and I also have some day job stuff and/or writing that I should really take care of (chances that this will happen are slim). I'm headed back to Colorado Sunday morning, so this is a super quick trip - but I'm glad I came, or else I might not have had the pleasure of throwing away an entire drawer full of expired toiletries in varying degrees of grossness (#lucky). Goodnight!
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