In-Laws and Trannies and Atronauts, oh my...

So, the In-Laws invited themselves down from Ohio for Thanksgiving, and decided that Sheeps’ brother and family should fly out from Cally-For-Ny-Aay as well. Her mom is about as endearing as a rattlesnake with a toothache. I’m not just spouting “in-law platitudes”. Ask Sheeps, she’ll tell ya! She has a way of throwing out condescending remarks as casual conversation. Talking with her can be nerve-shattering, but one learns to tune out demeaning bits…

Her brother is a dork. Apparently the favored child. He spent most of the time play-fighting with his 10 y/o son, so didn’t really interact with anyone. His wife Chi, was actually very nice. She’d actually carry on a conversation with you… The son is the typical spoiled only child of a moderately well to-do family. The kid ate nothing but chicken nuggets, bananas and cheese. And milk. Lots of milk. But wouldn’t touch whipped cream. Go figure?

At any rate, the stay wasn’t *too* bad. We survived.

Part of the game-plan was to go to Silver Springs and ride the glass-bottomed boats, and view the Holiday Lights display. Holiday Lights, not just X-mas, ‘cause they had a 6’ lit up menorah. One. Oh, yeah, and a dreidel. That made it multi-denominational. And of course, we had to do what everyone else wanted to do. “We’re going to see *this* now.” Our thoughts and desires didn’t really matter. Then, leaving out of there (finally) we got lost, thanks to me actually listening to her mother. “You need to turn left here.” (Even though it was pitch black to the left and had businesses and whatnot on the right….) With a little directional horse-sense, I managed to get us back on the right track and back home again.

The next day, it was off to KSC. The Kennedy Space Center is definitely a cool thing to do, if you ever get the chance. We got a late start, due mostly to the B-I-L being unwilling to adjust to Florida time. I’ve never seen jet lag last a week before… We arrived in time to catch the last bus tour of the day. They’d drive you to a certain area of the Space Center, and drop you off. You’d watch a little film, check out a display, then hit another bus to take you to the next section, lather, rinse, repeat. You go at your own pace, but we, of course, were on someone else’s timeline, so didn’t really get to fully check out all the things we wished.

Another interesting thing to do is people-watch. KSC draws a lot of foreign visitors, not to mention rude American tourists. (I actually got physically shoved out of the way at the lunch counter as the “nice lady” didn’t get her juice.) There was one family that seemed to be dogging our footsteps, wherever we went. They were always in the same theater, same display hall, on the same bus… It was an older French couple on vacation there with their… daughter.

Now, mind you, I don’t really have a problem with Trannies. Really, I don’t. Live how you want to live. But is it too much to request that you do it with a little style? First of all, clam-diggers really haven’t been in style for 60 some-odd years. And when you’re over 6’ tall? Don’t wear 3” heels. And what are you wearing high heels for anyway? You’re at a theme park! Lots of walking! Wear comfy shoes! And the hair? Gabe Kaplan called. He wants his “Welcome Back Kotter” ‘do back. Pick up a copy of Cosmo. Wait, you’re French. Make it Elle. Learn a little style, whydoncha….

Then, on the second day, there were the British Kids. They appeared to be quite close in age, and could have been twins. And they were large. Huge. Now, I’m big, so don’t really have much room to talk, but these kids were gi-normous. And we couldn’t tell their gender. The parents weren’t that large, so I don’t think it was genetic…

We took advantage of the second day free bit on the tix, but this was more of the same. Doing what everyone else wanted to do, which mostly involved the educational stuff for the 10 year old. Yes, it was NASA, and all of the things were pretty cool, but it would have been nice to have been able to see an exhibit that *I* wanted to see. I know, it’s all about me, right?

We did get to learn about the future of the space program. They’re scrapping the shuttles and going back to the capsule program. It sounds like a step back, but it really isn’t. They’re planning on going back to the moon! And then a manned flight to Mars! The shuttle is completely wrong for that type of program, so in comes “Orion”. I think it is pretty exciting, but then again, I’m a geek for that sort of thing.

We headed our separate ways that evening, as the ‘Rents were taking B-i-L and family to Jax for their flight home, and we headed back to G-Ville. We got home much later than either of us would have liked, but we were alone at last! And how did we celebrate this new found peace? We were snoring within 5 minutes of getting home. It was a long weekend…

Lo and behold, the ‘Rents were back on Monday. They’d left a lot of their luggage at our house to make room for their 3 extra passengers, and came back to get the stuff. The plan was that they’d come back in the afternoon, while we were at work, and get their stuff and hit the road. They decided to stay an extra day, so were there when I got home from work. This spoiled a lot plans, especially the participation in my Monday night “play date”, as Sheeps calls it. They old “gang” gets together on Monday evenings and plays City of Heroes. Well, we don’t “get together”, but we’re together online. We’re still keeping in touch, which is the important part. The game is secondary to spending time with dear old friends. And I missed it! Oh, well, there is always next week.

They left the next morning, after we’d gone to work, so now we are finally free. It was a stressful couple of weeks, but we lived through it, and the obligatory yearly visit is over! I think Christmas is going to be spent quietly, at home.