The Surprise

Sorry I've been MIA from the blog for pretty much the entire month. You see, I had a big surprise. A little over a week ago, my Dad called me.

Dad: "Your mother needs a vacation, I need a vacation, I'm sending her to come see you."
Me: "Great!"
Thinking I haven't seen my family in 3 months, it would be cool if they came to visit.
Me: "When are they coming?"
Dad: "How about Saturday?"
It's Thursday.
Me: "This Saturday?"
Dad: "Sure."
Me: "Dad, it's Thursday. Tickets are going to be wicked expensive, I'm on call at work almost every day next week, and I have to spend a day in New Hampshire at a conference."
Dad: "Take her with you."
Me: "Mom and Jo (who is 12 years old)?"
Dad: "Sure, whatever. Just buy the tickets, I'll pay you back."

And thus began my week with Mom and Jo. I found out Thursday night, they arrived Saturday afternoon. Friday was a day of frantic cleaning (not that it did me any good as Jo went around taking pictures of the apartment after it got messy again, and with the closet doors deliberately opened so people could see "what my apartment *really* looked like.")


Luckily I now have both Tom's Wii and his XBox 360 at my apartment. I found that they are pretty useful in entertaining people when you're not around. My mother and Jo played Lego Star Wars on the xbox every morning (you could hear them shouting at each other from upstairs) and Jo and Tom played various Wii and xbox games every night. My favorite though, had to be the first night. They arrived at my apartment, I gave them the tour, and then Tom showed them how to play the Wii. And over the next few hours there was a lot of laughter, a lot of yelling, and even some glass breakage. (I was bowling, swung my arm up, completely shattered the top of a glass. Only the top though...didn't spill a drop of water. Skillz babay.)

The day after they arrived, I was on call and had to go to work at about 7 AM and arrived home after they went to bed. I told them how to get to the train station, and told them which stop to get off at to arrive in the city. Of course, they got lost going to the train, walked like 26 miles over the course of the day, but ended up seeing a lot of stuff. Not that that was much consolation to the sullen 12 year old with the tired little feet. They seemed to get around pretty well, and ended up having to spend a lot of time without me during their trip. They went to Salem, MA one day- Jo brought me back this badass souvenir (pic).


They went to the Science Museum, the USS Constitution, Quincy Market, Faneuil Hall, all over the place. They even hiked over to the Bunker Hill Monument. But I did have a couple days that I was able to spend with them. And of course, I wanted to spend those days showing them the best the city has to offer. I'm talking of course, about little blue penguins. We went to the aquarium on Monday and got to see them feed the little blues! A-dorable. Seriously. We were at the little talk that the keepers do and they were talking about how the African penguins will be extinct by 2040 (huh!??) and I got really worried about the lil' blues. According to the keepers, the lil' blues aren't even on the threatened list. Apparently everyone knows they're too adorable to eat. So, phew, no problems there.

Here's a note for people that live in Boston, or plan to visit. When you walk into the aquarium, and they make you take that stupid picture that they'll try to sell to you when you're walking out the door, finish and then take a left. I always try to get past that cameraman as quickly as I can. There's no sense in wasting paper and chemicals on a photo that I swear to you I will not pay $10 for. So, I rush past him and then walk straight into the aquarium to the right. Because of this, I've NEVER noticed that there is an entire exhibit area to the left of the cameraman. Right now they have a jellyfish exhibit that is totally awesome, and I would've missed it had my mother not needed to hit the restroom on the way out! That is poor signage on the part of the aquarium, but I prefer to blame the camera people. It's ridiculous.

The other day I had off I took them to Fenway Park, and walking through Boston Common and the Public Gardens. This was perhaps my favorite part about the trip. Why? I will tell you why. My mother has some kind of weird bird guano radar when she's on vacation. A couple years ago when we were on vacation, Mom was crapped on by a seagull at the zoo in Chicago. You may remember the famous photo. So, when we were in the public gardens and I sent Mom and Jo up on a bridge to take their picture, it kicked in again. Mom put her hand on a little-used section of railing. Perhaps it's little used because it is actually covered by a heaping pile of bird dung. In the picture at left, my mother's right hand is covered in bird crap and Jo can't stop laughing at her. We ended up walking under the bridge and pouring sprite all over Mom's hand to clean it. We later lost her in a 5 story Banana Republic where she tried to find a restroom to wash her hands. Everything's an adventure with these two. :-p

So, in the end they saw most of the city, and I got to hang out with them a grand total of two days of the seven they were here. It was a little crazy. But, I think we all had fun and that's what counts I guess. Well, that and the fact that you can't bring baseball bats on an airplane (even little souvenir ones wielded by 12 year old girls.) That is also important as my mother discovered on the way back. Hehe. :-p

The End.

PS- To my AOC readers: my mother doesn't know about my blog. Let's keep it that way. ;)