Breaking Curfew and Seeing R-rated Films
There are claymation penguins eating cake with seals in party hats. The main topic of conversation/argument in the house is the ever changing temperature reading off the side of my parents house.
My Father: Ooh! It's 38! Look at the sky!
My Mother: 38?! (utter disbelief that it could be 38 degrees rings in her voice) Why that is ten degrees colder than yesterday!
My parents are fascinated by weather. My father's dream is to have some sort of Wizard of Oz like capability or machine on the premises that would tell him the weather every five minutes or so down to the last centigrade, jet stream and barometric pressure. If my father had to live in a climate like sunny So Cal where seasons are hard to differentiate he wouldn't know what to do with himself. He is the Oz of weather. He and my mother confer on the temperature every half hour or so as if the each degree change is a prophecy of some sort. The amount of birds by the bird feeder by the hour are also a constant source of discussion.
Despite being in my 30's, being married, having a mortgage, dog and kid I come home to my parents house and feel like a teen again. My mother feeds me, I do the same chores I did as a kid, and my father controls the remote to the television. For the most part I don't really mind it. It's oddly comforting yet strangling at the same time. See just like being 15 again!
At some point last night after a rousing viewing of Antiques Roadshow Savannah embellished with carrot cake I found myself engrossed in a PBS special about the life of a lobsters. To be fair it was actually, 'The Realm of the Lobster'. Sounds more enticing, no? It was at this moment that I felt like I was about nine years old again and I should be sitting on the floor of the living room watching TV. My myopic self would sit incredibly close to the set and watch hours of National Geographic and public television specials with my parents. It's no wonder I turned out the way I did when a good night at home was watching a three foot long lobsta duke it out with another lobsta of lesser size and claw width. I could have sat there entranced all night as baby lobstas were hatched into the wild into the Bay of Fundy and tried to survive, but H nudged me that it was time to get a move on if we were going to take advantage of free baby-sitting and head to the movies.
As H and I headed out in the sleeting rain (a 9:30 show! We are giddy like teenagers about to miss curfew) my father yelled out the front door that the current temp was 32. My Mom warned us to watch out for deer and to remember to use our high beams. Thanks Mom!
It's good to be home. If nothing else being made to feel like a teenager again by your parents does indeed make you feel like, well, a teenager again. This time though I feel like H is the cool boyfriend I always wanted in high school but never had. He has a better car too.
I've been somewhat productive while here as proof in this.
