Well, it's that time of year again, when school is creeping up on deck and one is expected to take one's children on a vacation. This year I decided we should all visit my father and step-mother in their teeny tiny town in Kansas. The first night when I arrived at my parents house, the first chore up on deck was fixing their Internet connection. The word genius was batted around when it was achieved. I thought to myself, "Hooray and thank you Linksys for making such a shitty product.."
After my heroism at the computer I was promptly sent to Walmart for some fixins for dinner. I was moseying about when I came across a pink rifle. I felt very conflicted over it. On one hand, it disturbed me that a little girl somewhere in the Flint Hills of Kansas yearned for such a prize. On the other hand, I have to admit, how cool would it be to be a prepubescent girl and to own a hot pink, classic rim-fire, bolt action .22? Perhaps one could even find a matching scope?
The second night in Kansas, my brother and his lovely wife and their brood of red headed squirts came over for dinner. We ended up watching the Olympics, specifically men's gymnastics, specifically the pommel horse. When a gymnast dismounted, My brother couldn't help himself and the words "Damn that hop is going to cost him points." escaped his lips. A hush fell over the entire family, even the children withdrew their attention from various electronic devices to look up at the adults. It was quite the awkward family moment.
On the third day of my visit, I asked my father what did he love about my mother. His answer, "Hell girl, I cain't remember.." As his eyes searched for a better answer, I saw to the side a picture of himself as a young boy. It's his prize possession and had hung in the hallway of my Grandma's trailer. During the summers when I was a kid and sent to my Grandma, I used to look up at that picture of him, enjoying the feeling of an old swamp cooler's vent, as it washed it's stale wet air over me. I did that plenty during his second tour of Vietnam, specially when I couldn't remember what he looked like.
On the fourth day, my five year old niece, who's favorite pair of shoes are a well loved and worn pair of sparkly red ruby Chuck Taylors, challenged me to a game of RockStar on the Wii. It was cute the way she asked with her lisp. I was going to let her show off and then pretend to be a bit shaky when I started my song. But, she ended up humiliating me with her stellar rendition of Survivor's Eye Of The Tiger. It totally made me lose confidence, as I feebly attempted Bad Company's Shooting Star. I really did think I would have that one in the bag, given how many times I had heard drunk teenage boys sing it to me, as they tried in vein to drag me into their "hand me down" hot rods.
Overall, my trip to Kansas was a success. My boys, brought up by their father and myself, with our different degrees of "Helicopter" parenting styles, got to run around with kids their own age as the sun sat. They played hide and seek to the sound of crickets singing tunes of dread, from parched and withering cornfields. They got to swim in a decaying public pool with kids who understand the value of a dollar and how physically hard their parents work for each and every one of them. So overall, that really was the best vacation I could've ever gifted them, given that their classmates back in L.A. are off with their flush and fancy parents, actually at the Olympics or by themselves at some fancy camp up in Canada, where bunk beds are made up with 300 count sheets.
As we sat on the plane, making our way back home, they both pleaded to visit at Christmas time.
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