I’m always telling myself that I shouldn’t wait until something monumental to be writing in my blog. I mean, the main point is to just talk about what’s going on with me, what I’m thinking about, etc, right?

So, in that spirit, I’ll write simply to say that my parents just headed home from a visit with me. We didn’t do nearly as much work on this visit as we sometimes do (for reasons I don’t fully understand, they are extremely generous with helping me with house projects, I’ve learned a lot from them and they’ve just plain done a lot to make my house look nice and function well, and to keep it that way. Thanks be to them!). We mostly had fun. Friday night we had ice cream (my mom loves butter pecan sundaes from the Chocolate Moose) and talked for a couple of hours before going to bed. Saturday we played disc golf (my dad is really in to playing these days, but rarely goes by himself) and then went shopping. I bought a new weed wacker, that was easy. whew, the story of the old one is probably deserving of its own blog post. But, that’s not this one.

Then we shopped for a new couch. Funny story, the couch I’m sitting on as I type this belonged to my grandmother, and it was the couch that my great aunt Esther was always sitting on when we went to visit. I find the couch comfortable and I also appreciate the familial connection, but it is undeniably old and worn, and I can understand why I get a bit of pressure from some people close to me (mostly my mom and Sue (who I gather have done a bit of conspiring on the matter)) to get a new one. Shopping for furniture, though, is not an activity I’m prone to enjoy. So, it was very helpful to have my parents along for moral support. I didn’t buy one, but I think we narrowed it down to two possibilities, both at the same store. Cool.

Saturday night we went to the wonderful Esan Thai for dinner. We ordered three dishes, with ratings of 3, 4, and 5 on their spiciness scale. The “3” was not very spicy, the “4” was about as spicy as I can handle, and the “5”… well, my dad certainly ate it and enjoyed it, but it was the first time I can ever remember him saying “I would enjoy this more if it were less spicy”. Wow. In any event, we all sat there with noses running and really feeling a little high on [Capsaicin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsaicin) (Hey, look! Here I was kind of joking about that, but that wikipedia article even talks about a capsaicin “high”. All I know is, I felt pretty loopy, and they don’t even serve alcohol at this restaurant.)

We got another Chocolate Moose on the way home, and then played our standard game of three handed pinnochle. Definitely not the best games of pinnochle we’ve played… my dad won everything handly. After a while, we switched to the card game we call “golf”, and that was fun, as usual.

The weather was nice this morning, so after our Easter donuts (from Cresent Donut) my dad convinced us to go out for another round of disc golf. Sure! For some reason, I was playing a little less seriously today, as evidenced by my many bogeys and my frequent practice “rolling drives”, which frequently made us all giggle. Still, considering how much less often I play than I used to, my skill level remains about the same, I think. That’s nice.

We came back home, ate lunch, and my mom and I played Perquackey. We also played with some of my perl-coded Perquackey tools, the first time that I’ve run them on this laptop (I think), and that was fun but also distracting to my game. That being said, my mom was totally on her game, and I think she would have beaten me even if I hadn’t been distracted.

And now, they’re driving home. It’s fun to have them visit. They are good people, thoughtful people, and as I say, very generous with their help. But most of all, they are fun to be around. I’m lucky to be able to say that about my parents.

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