I worked a little more on the pile of stored stuff today, and then ventured over to High Point to take pictures of old supermarkets and see if I still knew my way around. I was moderately successful on both counts.

 

Tonight, the family (and I mean pretty much the WHOLE family on both Mom and Dad’s sides) came over for dinner. It was great to see everyone, if a little exhausting. Dinner was set up “open house” style, which meant the first guests arrived before 5:00, and the last ones didn’t leave until almost 10:00.

 

I was sort of beat when I hit the bed tonight. And Mark was coming tomorrow…

I didn’t go for the free cigarette tasting because I hate all the pretense, the palate-cleansing, and the pressure to buy. Besides, the place seemed to be closed. So my mom and I went to Yum-Yum and had hot dogs and ice cream instead.

Actually, I stayed pretty close to home today, going through boxes and boxes of my stuff which my parents have in storage. I do some of this every time I’m home, just to try to reduce the bulk a little. It seems each passing year makes me a little more ruthless and allows me to throw away more stuff. This is good.

Dinner at the cafeteria again. Lest I sound bored by this, I’m most certainly not…

 

Tonight, I went out on my own and did my little circuit of Greensboro, visiting all the neighborhoods my parents would just as soon skip (including the increasingly ghostly and creepy shell of the former Carolina Circle Mall), checking out the supermarkets, etc.

 

Mark dropped me off at the airport early in the morning on his way to Fresno to see his own parents. I settled in for a very long day of plane rides and airports and cravings for food, nicotine, and a chair which didn’t have another chair six inches in front of it.

My layover was in Dallas, and the size of that city’s Sunday paper plus my new used copy of All the President’s Men kept me relatively entertained in the air.

Mom and Dad were waiting for me in Charlotte. They fed me at a Waffle House there and headed northeast for Greensboro. I marvelled at the highway construction along I-85. We just don’t have that much highway construction in California anymore.

Assorted motel and rental car reservations are now complete…

Why am I so strangely paranoid about aspects of this trip? Not about the actual trip or its itinerary (or participants), mind you, but the logisitics. Maybe it’s because I haven’t flown since before 11 September 2001, and I’m not sure how much more annoying that part will be nowadays. God knows, it would be hard to make air travel any more of a pain in the ass than it already was, but if there’s a way, the airline industry is sure to find it…

This is also my first cross-country trip with a slew of medications which have to be taken everyday, thanks to that thyroid-related heart condition (which may be eliminated soon at long last), so I’m being obsessive about that as well…

Of course, it’s also the first time I’ve seen my mom in over eighteen months and my dad in over two years. And I’ll be expected to show Mark all the excitement North Carolina has to offer when he shows up on Wednesday. Gosh, what pressure. OK, not really…

Anyhow, bags are packed, bills are paid, reading material is being contemplated, and I’ll be gone in eighteen hours, happy in the knowlege that I’ll be missing all the stupid “pride” nonsense around here, not to mention avoiding all its assorted irritating participants…