I hate that I cry when my parents leave. It makes me feel 4 as well as melancholy all day. I will probably cry again tonight when John's dad and his wife leave. At least they both departed on the same day.

The following recounts the end of the week, weekend and my parents visit in no particular chronological order.

My parents arrived on Friday afternoon. They came directly to our house. John and Dad unloaded all the firewood and put it around back in the shed. Then Samantha and I went with Mom and Dad to check into the hotel in town. (They seem to prefer staying in a hotel than at our house which is fine with us.) Dad has his new Audi station wagon thingy with all sorts of bells and whistles. It literally has bells... Dad refuses to wear his seat belt so there is a bell that dings and dings and dings and dings. They don't seem to mind. Although I don't suppose you can hear it much with Mom talking so loudly. I haven't figured out if Dad has lost any more hearing or just chooses to ignore Mom. On the way to the hotel above the ding there was a loud and lively discussion about whether or not to have the windows open. Remember way back when I had all that "toxic dust" swirling around in the Element and I thought I was going to die from some sort of poisonous stuff, well, it turns out it was from the last firewood transport I made. Dad and I were both yelling at Mom to roll the windows up or the dust was going to blow all over the place. Finally she listened and we got to the hotel. Afterward we went by the car wash and I vacuumed out the car for them. We almost died on the way home. The main road narrows from 2 lanes to 1 and Dad decided he didn't want to merge. The oncoming cars had to veer onto the shoulder until he decided to get over.

Dinner was awesome. My Greek chicken has become my new favorite meal. Everyone else loved it too along with the potatoes. The 9 x 13 pan of potatoes were completely gone! And we had a salad of organic baby greens and some spinach and asiago cheese bread.

After dinner we went to Pickerington Ponds to see if the baby osprey had flown yet for the first time yet. (He hadn't.) I thought it was funny that all the exact same people were there as last night. Then we went for ice cream. We waited in line for over an hour. Mom and Samantha sat outside while Dad and I waited in line. It didn't seem so long because I knew a bunch of people and we all chatted, and Dad will start up a conversation with anyone.

We decided the John Sr. needs one of those 7' tall lighted palm trees to put outside when he parks his RV. He also needs a screened in porch and patio lights. But then John came home on Saturday after spending the day with his dad at the car show and said that his dad decided he needed a 7' tall lighted cactus since he's from out west. How cool. I always like things that are different.

John: I'm going to be famous. They ought to sculpt me in butter and put me on display in the dairy barn at to State Fair.
John's Sargent: How many cows do you think that would take?

Whenever I see wild flowers along the highway I will think of Lady Bird Johnson who died this week.

Ron hurt his shoulder and has called off several times in the last week or so. On Thursday he called off but Carla had Lynn call to have him come in for our meeting. I almost choked on my coffee when he came in, he had made a sling out of a pillow case and was walking all leaned over to one side. I threw something at Ellen to get her attention to look at him.The expression on her face was priceless. So, we go into the meeting and Carla sees his sling and tells him it is tied all wrong so she goes over and starts adjusting it. He is wincing in pain as she is telling him to lower his arm and everyone around the conference table is just starring at them. Finally Lynn and I busted out laughing. Totally inappropriate I know but we just couldn't help it. It was too funny to see this Jewish mother hen fussing with a very short black man's pillowcase sling.

I noticed a fake floral arrangement in a wooden bird house in the garage and asked John about it. He said his mom gave it to him the other day and that it had been from his grand father's funeral. Each of the grand kids were to have an arrangement and this one was the one John was to have. His grand father died in 1989.

Oh, the rest of the weekend was wonderful but I will write about it later because it is time for a nap.