Turkey with a side of ghostly death

Here on Sunday afternoon it's hard to believe that the last week is over. I'd been looking forward to my parents' weeklong visit for months, and now it's already over. It's a common sentiment, I know, but worth noting all the same.


Random thought: it sucks that the last time I see my mom, every time I see my mom, she's crying at an airport.


Not-so-random thought: I hate LAX during the holidays.


Excluding my wedding, this is the first time in I Don't Know How Many Years that I've spent a holiday with not only my parents, but with all of my dad's siblings at the same time. It's much louder than I remembered. My aunts are pretty funny ladies, and watching them (lovingly) belittle my father is a sight to behold. Add to that an excessive amount of drinking among many of the participants and I often ended up with a headache each morning despite the fact that I was once of the few non-drinkers. THIS ATTEMPTING TO GET PREGNANT THING BETTER BE WORTH IT.

With my parents and my aunts and uncles all being at least 52+, there was often a lot of just sitting around and talking and playing cards in the evenings. Lots of conversation. And lots of me snickering in my head because I can recall the some of the same specific conversations happening last year when we were all together for my wedding. Must suck to get old and lose the memories! The one that was the most enjoyable for me to rehear was the one where pretty much everyone talked about how they believe in ghosts and to recount their ghostly encounters. My parents insist that they have a ghost in their house--specifically, the ghost of a woman from the 19th century who most likely came from the graveyard that is down the street from their house. And the location that their house is on apparently used to be a horse barn so they think that she died in the barn and has been haunting the house ever since it was built, and she really likes my sister's old bedroom. My mom likes to make things up like how my sister used to wake up and swear that she felt someone choking her, and I'm all Mom. Please. That never happened. I would have heard about it at the time. And oh yeah, the ghost likes to open cabinet doors and then close them and turn lights on. Please. Ghost. Be a little more original. Of course the ghost talk led to all of them talking about how they all new the exact moment their parents died before they had even been told. Which was totally depressing. Coupled with the conversation they all had before going to the airport about how wouldn't it suck to die in a plane crash but even though you would be scared all the way down you would never know the instant of impact because it would be so fast. And I'm all HEY. OLDER PEOPLE. CAN WE QUIT IT WITH THE DEATH TALK? It's the holidays, be thankful you're alive.

Oh, silly adults.