Thursday, February 28, 2013

Where Have All the In-Laws Gone?

Melanie’s parents flew into town—well, they flew into state, at least—on Tuesday, February 19th. They left us on the morning of Tuesday, February 26th. It was a pleasant week, and we are all sad to see them go. Eddie and Peter are especially fond of their grandparents, and Creegan fell even more in love with them on this visit. Eddie has shed more than a few tears since their departure, and even I felt rather down in the dumps for the first 36 hours or so after they left. Having them here put us all into vacation mode. I had to go to school, but I largely ignored my academic responsibilities outside of class time. Instead, I enjoyed conversation, taking my in-laws to some of the best eateries in Tallahassee, playing games, and just plain hanging out.

I don’t plan to recount every detail of my in-laws’ visit. But I feel I would be ungrateful if I didn’t mention the repair work that Melanie’s dad did for us. As if by fate, our van failed to start on the very day that Melanie’s parents arrived. We haven’t had a van problem in quite some time, and I was actually looking forward to a visit that wouldn’t require me humbling seeking my father-in-law’s auto-repair expertise. Being the generous man that he is, Ron (as I like to call him) came to our rescue without hesitation or complaint. The van is now back in working order. It’s working even better than it was before Ron’s arrival, although that’s not saying a lot. Ever willing to go the extra mile, Ron even took it upon himself to fix the door handle on our Corolla. The outside door handle broke off something like two years ago, but I hadn’t ever bothered to get it fixed. So long as it wasn’t raining outside, I’d always been able to open the door through some skillful manipulation. This made repairing the door seem like a luxury, but I must say that I love having an actual handle back in place.

The repairs didn’t stop with vehicles. Ron also repaired Edison’s bicycle, a task that completely eluded me. He also helped me put up some curtain rods, one of which had fallen because it wasn’t secured well enough. As you can tell, I’m woefully ignorant of anything involving tools, and pretty much everything I know at this point comes from what Ron has taught me. I think I can now actually differentiate a hammer from a screwdriver. (The screwdriver is for putting nuts on bolts, right?) Melanie did not hit the jackpot when it came to marrying a handyman. Good thing I’m so funny.

I’m really not sure what else to report about their visit. Tallahassee doesn’t offer much in the way of sights to see, so there wasn’t much “tourism” involved with my in-laws’ visit. It really was just an opportunity to spend time together, which was great. Melanie and I also got a chance to go on a date, thanks to her parents’ free babysitting. Since we weren’t paying them, Melanie and I went to dinner and a movie. That’s quite a splurge for us. We saw Les Misérables at the “dollar” theater and then went to Outback Steakhouse. The dollar theater smells kind of like pee, but the movie was decent. Not a best picture nominee, in my opinion, but good. Neither was my dinner one of the very best of the last year, but it was also quite good.

I believe Melanie took some photos during my in-laws’ visit, but those have yet to be uploaded to our computer. Perhaps I’ll share them later, but probably not. Maybe Melanie will put some up on her blog. Until then, Melanie and Edison are counting down the days until we can fly to Utah and visit Melanie’s parents on their own turf. I didn’t know we had any definite plans to visit Utah this year, but something tells me it’s going to be hard to talk them out of it. We’ll see what happens. I have no idea what to expect from life starting in May. I might end up teaching this summer, unless I graduate. You’d think I’d know these things by now. I don’t. Stay tuned.

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