Edgar and I went to his mother and father's house for the first time last night since we moved out of there, save a brief trip a few days after we moved out to pick up some of our stray belongings. It was kind of weird.
His mom was all "Oh, I miss you guys! I miss having other people living here!" and I was all "Wow, really?" in my head. Because I LOVE living on our own again. I LOVE having privacy. I LOVE not hearing people sing to the cat.
This isn't to say that living with his parents was such a horrible experience. It was just that we are adults, and there is something inherently uncomfortable about living with your parents (or your SO's parents) as adults. You always feel like you have to watch your mouth and not have sex and put your clothes on before you leave the bathroom. This is why privacy is good!
My mother in law is also full of old wive's tales and habits that can sometimes become grating. She's just so old school. For example: she 'wastes' nothing. I was making myself an egg white omelette one morning while we lived with them, and, silly me, I was throwing the egg yolks away. She saw me doing that and was like "No! Wait! Save those, I can use them!" So a coffee mug full of egg yolks sat in the refrigerator for a week, stinking to high heaven after a couple of days. AND THEN THEY HAD TO BE THROWN AWAY. Another time, I had a cold and she completely lost her goat when she saw me putting ice in a glass of water, insisting that I would never get better if I had ice, because that was what was causing me to have a cold. I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure that unless someone with a cold has been sneezing all over that ice prior to me putting it in my drink that I'll be safe. And so on and so forth. It was always something, and if I would ever disagree with her, she would always shake her head and look at me in that "Oh silly girl, you know nothing of this world" type of way and mumble something in Spanish. And to think, I will one day be that person to my very own son or daughter in law. Exciting!
We had a good time last night though. We were a little late getting there because Edgar and I can never fail to be distracted by something when we're not on a deadline. Things like what hour you need to be at work are hard and fast; we are never late for work. Or appointments. Or anything like that. But for some reason we can never seem to show up at dinners or parties at the correct time. Yesterday, our first distraction was beer. We decided that we wanted to try that new Golden Wheat by Budweiser because we were curious to see how they would handle a hefeweisen (answer: only ok). So we had to run over to Rite Aid before we left. Then we decided that since his mom and dad's house is near a mall that we should stop there so that Edgar could buy some more cologne; their mall has this perfume/cologne store where you can buy some really nice items below retail. So we got Edgar's (which took longer than expected since they were out of the scent we wanted to buy), but then I started smelling this perfume called Moon Sparkle by Escada and had to waffle for a few minutes on whether to buy it. I'm not really a perfume wearer, but I liked the scent and decided to take the plunge. It's kind of light and fruity, but it doesn't have that overbearing perfume scent. I'm happy with it. Then after the whole cologne and perfume debacle we remembered that we needed cat litter, so that necessitated another stop at Target before we made it to his parents. We were quite the disorganized couple yesterday.
But we eventually made it there and were able to drink our beer. His parents bought New York steaks for us to grill, and I think that made Edgar's night. We couldn't have a grill at our apartment because of some new law passed in California that bans them, or some stupid thing like that. Way to go, kid in Huntington Beach that had to set his apartment on fire AND RUIN IT FOR EVERYBODY. Edgar loves steak, so being able to eat it again, since we can't make them at home, was like finding Jesus for him. Even the act of grilling alone was getting close to bringing about orgasm. He was running around with his tongs, flipping steaks here, flipping steaks there, talking about he was really Bobby Flay....it got a little scary for a few moments there. My favorite part of the evening was probably after dinner though. We sat around the table on the patio, me, Edgar, his parents, his brother, and his brothers partner, and we just talked. And laughed. And had an all around good itme. There was a moment where this almost surreal feeling hit me, and it's something that I've never experienced with Edgar's family before. I've had it with my own family before when we've all been together and you get this feeling like "Wow, check us out. We're all mature, we're all adults, we run our own lives and are in control and WOW, WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN? HOW DID WE GET HERE?" There were evenings when I still lived in Indiana where me, my parents, my sister, and my brother with his wife and kids would all be together for dinner and I would just look around at all of us together and think "Ryan used to throw toys at my head and Emily and I used to share a bedroom and I would get so mad when she wouldn't let me listen to what I wanted on the radio and now we're all sitting here together and all of those things are gone and we're happy and we're not kids anymore." And I got that feeling with his family last night. Not very long ago at all, Edgar and I were in a dark place of unemployment, living with his parents and feeling like we were stuck in a hole. We weren't talking to his brother's partner and because of that we rarely saw his brother. We were getting so frustrated at his parents because of Every Little Thing and would retreat to our bedroom every evening as soon as dinner was over in order to avoid them. So sitting there last nigh gathered around a table on the patio, it struck me just how different things are now than they used to be. I think it was a good change.
Of course, I could have gone without the knowledge that some of those conversations last night provided, such as the fact that my brother in law likes to suck toes. HE SUCKS TOES, PEOPLE. Have I ever mentioned that my husband and his brother are twins? So now whenever I look at my husband, I see a toe sucker.
To each his own.
0 comments:
Post a Comment