A space to post my thoughts and musings about anything. This includes but is not limited to community, politics, current events, relationships, LGBTQ+ issues, favorite things, and stuff that would make your dead relatives blush. I am not afraid to go there, as some can attest.

October 30, 2007

Visiting Connecticut, Part 1

As many of my friends know, I visited Connecticut over a long weekend to take care of some handyman jobs around my grandmother's house. She is fine, and she does well taking care of the day to day stuff with some help from my aunts, however, there's always those odd jobs that need to be done seasonally that they can't completely do by themselves. Normally this is a task that my dad would do since he has made it his point to travel every fall and spring to take care of those odd jobs. Along with that, I would try to make visits to join him and help out when possible. However, this year he had done so much traveling and work during the summer to get my brothers moved into their respective colleges (including a cross-country trip) that he really wasn't in a position to make it out to Connecticut.

Around the time he was deciding this, I got an offer from Southwest DING! offering to let me fly from Baltimore to Hartford for only $36 each way. I was able to convince my grandmother that I would be fine being there with only her and that I was there to take care of her, and not to have it turn into a big visiting weekend. So I set myself up to go on October 20, and out of respect to my grandmother, I told no one else I was coming, leaving it up to her and my aunts.

Thanks to the generosity of some friends of mine, I was given a ride to BWI at 6 in the morning since my flight left at 8. As usual, I was through security in less than 20 minutes, so I sat around and listened to some music on my Stiletto while I waited for my flight. I also grabbed a bowl of oatmeal at the local Au Bon Pain so I could have a good breakfast before getting on the plane.

The plane ride was rather uneventful, except that it was just turbulent enough that the flight attendants could not serve drinks. Oh well, it happens. I felt like I was on that plane for less than the hour it really took. It helped that I had a book to read, if anything it felts like my morning commute on the metro.

So I got to the airport, met my aunts, and we took off to the house. I was at my grandmother's by 10:30, and after a bit of visiting, it was lunchtime of course. After lunch, the first thing to be done was remove the window A/c and put it away for the winter. That went fine of course, and we got the window all sealed up. I then helped replace all of the screens on the doors with the storm windows. After that, it was down to the cellar to see what was available for painting.

I have to thank my grandfather for the fact that whenever he started a new project, he bought a can of paint. So my task was to go through the thirty or so cans of paint and see if any were still good and see what we could use. As expected, some of the cans were stone dry, others had such a thick skin of dry paint that they were not worth saving, and even others were not needed, such as car paint. However, there were also a few good cans of paint that were in the colors we needed to paint the porch. After an afternoon of sorting paint cans and ending up with multicolored hands, it was time for tea. Yes, my grandmother has a tea time around 4 PM.

I had tea with my grandmother and aunts before being sent upstairs to take a nap. No, it wasn't because I was being forced to, I really was that tired. At one point I almost fell asleep sitting at the table. I crashed for about two hours before being woken up by the banging on the stovepipe for dinner. Dinner on Friday night consisted of pasta with tomato sauce, ricotta cheese, and meat, as a sort of make your own lasagna. It was very good of course. After that, I said goodbye to the aunts and my grandmother and I watched Executive Decision before heading to bed.

1 comment:

  1. I never met my Grandparents (they died B4 I was born) Except for my Grandfather who I met for the first time when I was 10 and never saw him again.

    I sometimes wish I had the Grandparent experience. I guess this is why I have a lot of Olderfriends.

    I also wish I could find airfair so cheap.

    MEOW!

    ReplyDelete