Visiting Relatives Last Weekend (And I Dreamt of WoW)

Time to get back to the list topics. Hopefully I can get more of them knocked off in the coming days (though I'll be away for a day, visiting a good law school friend in Massachusetts).

Last weekend, my mom and I visited my grandparents, aunt and uncle in upper-New York state. It was "the holidays" and we were way overdue to visit them. My grandparents are 88 and 92 (I think). I kind of wish we saw them more often than we do though when we do visit with them it's a little rough. They're not as together or "with it" as they used to be. A little sad. Thankfully I have memories of my grandfather from when I was a kid and he was infinitely more awake and in-touch with the world. Sometimes it makes me wonder if living to be that old is worth it but I don't really dwell on that.

While we were there, we stayed with my aunt and uncle in their house. Both of them are smokers and smoke in their house, though my aunt tried to curb that while we were there. (Incidentally, both my mom and I are avowed non-smokers. Though I will have the occasional cigarette if I'm out drinking with friends or such – a very rare occurrence at best.) So my aunt and uncle's house smells reeks of cigarette smoke. Thus, any clothes you wear while in that house and any clothes left unprotected in the house and any clothes placed with the now-smelly clothes all reek of smoke. Which, in the end, means I had to get my suit and dress shirts (which were clean but with the smelly suit under plastic) dry-cleaned. Fortunately we're wise to this and left our jackets in my mom's car so those remained clean.

Anyways, the visit was fine. Nothing terribly unusual. Also got to visit with cousins of mine or another aunt/uncle removed or however you put it (specifically, the son and his wife of my grandfather's late sister). I'll be seeing them again in October for a different cousin's wedding in Texas. (More on that in another post sometime soon.)

While there, we did go to the "Race-ino" (a "casino" at a nearby racetrack, and I say "casino" because all it consists of is slot machines).. twice. I managed to donate an amount of money equivalent to a fairly nice dinner. Ditto for my mom. It was fun, though, and I enjoyed it. They have $0.01 and $0.02 slots so you can gamble as little as you wish. In actuality, you're an idiot if you play less than $0.15 on the penny-slots since that covers the lines, so the $0.01/$0.02 descriptions are a little misleading. The other nice part there was that I got to have the first beer (a Sam Adams) I've had in a loooooong time. I'm talking months. It was so, sooooo good. I may snag a 6-pack of Oktoberfest on Friday. I kind of miss the occasional beer.

In the meantime, I have a chocolate chip cookie to snack on and billable hours to pursue. Onwards!