Here’s a hugely long rundown of my trip to visit the fam in Ohio, which is actually very brief if you consider everything I did:
Wednesday: My best friend, Tracey picked me up at the airport at 10 p.m. after my first on-time flight all year. After a stop at McDonald’s (YES!), we went back to her apartment to watch all of the reality TV on her DVR until, you know, 5 a.m.
Thursday: We woke up just in time to get lunch at Dairy Queen (YES!), where I sang along with every country song I remembered from my childhood growin’ up on the farm. We went shopping at Walmart (YES!) for Tracey’s parents and spent some time at their house in our hometown, using phrases like “this milk smells blinky” and admiring their new window trim. After picking up dinner at Arby’s (YES!), we visited Tracey’s friend Kim to admire her new house and watch “Project Runway” before our tradition of going to Ladies 80s at a local bar. We danced until 2 a.m., sat on the patio and reminisced about high school until 3 a.m., and then let the gays hump us until 4 a.m., at which time the place closed, and we had to go to Steak’n’Shake (YES!).
Friday: We woke up moments before noon and decided to see Julie & Julia at 12:50. I was desperate for Wendy’s new boneless buffalo wings and a Twisted Frosty, so we rushed inside and used our fatty skills to scarf down our food in mere moments. After the movie, Tracey drove me twenty whole minutes from her apartment to my parents’ house, where we saw my stepsister’s new Mastiff puppy, because she lives two houses away from my parents with her boyfriend and his 11-year-old twin girls. And who lives in the house in between? One of my stepbrothers, his wife, and their new baby. How country is that? My parents took us to Bob Evans (YES!) for dinner, and then Tracey and I went to a deck party at our high school friend Katie’s house. That’s right; they had a party for their new deck. We left at midnight and went to Momo2, an Asian hangout with karaoke, bowling, a lounge, snacks, and smoothies. We got a private karaoke room for two and literally sang everything we knew from the song book. The cashier had told us they might close before 3 a.m. if it was dead and joked that he wouldn’t forget about us, but at 3:06, we left our room and found all the lights in the place on, everything shut down, and our cashier with a very surprised look on his face.
Saturday: We had Dairy Queen again for lunch, because we think it’s hot to order frozen hot chocolate: not only is it not on the menu, but it seems to only be available in Ohio. Tracey drove me to my parents’ house in the afternoon for my dad’s birthday celebration, which involved homemade carrot cake courtesy of my stepmom and homemade ice cream courtesy of my dad. My sister came up from Kentucky, and we spent the night watching television shows about kidnapping, because there’s nothing else to do in the country.
Sunday: I went to church with my parents and sister, where we saw my crazy great-aunt Dorothy. Before I told her anything about my plans for the day, she said, “It’s a shame you can’t come over this afternoon–say about 1:30 or 2–because your cousins are going to be there.” I just nodded like, “Yeah, it’s a real shame.” But then at the end of the service, she told my sister and me that she’d see us another day, and my sister said, “Or maybe today!” So then she got all overly-excited and kept saying, “Okay, see you later today! You can come over any time! I’ll see you today! Oh, girls! I’ll see you later!” Godloveher. That night, Tracey and her husband picked me up at home and took me to Olive Garden (YES YES!), which exists in NYC but feels icky and touristy here. We went back to Tracey and Dan’s and watched the end of “Lost” season 5, which means I’m officially caught up with the series OMG.
Monday: We met our friend Katie for lunch at Wendy’s with her husband and baby and learned that adult conversation ceases once a baby exists, but it’s an awfully cute baby. Tracey and I spent the afternoon watching Adventureland, which was just as good the second time and is seriously a great movie–absolutely in my top ten–and it’s ridiculous that it’s not more popular, although of course I secretly enjoy that it’s not. I went home for dinner with my parents, which was supposed to be at a local pizza place we love but ended up being at O’Charley’s (YES!). My parents and I spent the entire meal fighting about public healthcare, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whether or not there’s an impending civil war. My stepmom brought up death panels, I snapped at her for believing that nonsense, and she said she’s glad I’m not the one taking care of her when she’s old. It was a great way for us to end my time at home together, obviously. They dropped me off at Tracey’s, and she and I spent the next two hours talking about politics, inheritances, and how parental sickness really tears siblings apart. We finished the conversation while getting ice cream at our favourite place, Graeter’s, and then went back to her apartment to watch Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, which suuuuuucked just like I thought it would, and Welcome to the Dollhouse, which didn’t.
Tuesday: Tracey took me to Dairy Queen one last time before dropping me off at the airport. Coming back to the city no longer feels weird to me, but going home feels just as good.
18 Comments
Please tell me you had a dip cone at The Dairy Queen. And some steak fingers and texas toast.
Also, I hated Nick and Norah’s Infinite play list. Pointless… and the whole gum situation made me want to throw up the whole movie.
Adventureland is next on my Netflix list! Can’t wait to check it out.
DUUUUUDE. I LOVE STEAK FINGERS AND TEXAS TOAST SO MUCH.
Also that white gravy they have. Mmm.
SO my favorite meal at DQ! Yum. Maybe it’s a Texas thing?
We Texans should really stop exporting our toast to OHIO.
Especially when they do shizznit like this!!!
You and Kelly are cuh-razy and evidently have a fundamentally different experience at DQ than I do. I absolutely always order the frozen hot chocolate no matter what. I’m not sure I’ve had a dip cone since the FHC was introduced back when I was in high school. I used to always get buffalo chicken fingers in the past, but this trip, I exclusively had chili cheese dogs. I can’t even imagine what steak fingers are!
I think Nick and Norah would’ve been 100 times better without that Caroline character at all, but Adventureland won’t disappoint, especially if you love the 80s.
Whoa!
“I can’t even imagine what steak fingers are!”
Really? Basically, chicken fried steak, but in strips, then you dip them in white gravy. You’ve never had that?!? OMG!
TELL me you know about chicken fried steak!?
Just FYI, I have stellar fatty skills. You wouldn’t even believe how much Wendy’s food I can stuff in my Frosty-hole in less than five minutes.
Ask Jessica. She’ll vouch for me.
I think you’re even skinnier than Tracey at this point, so I’m afraid that I’m going to have to call your bluff. Although you’re welcome to try to prove me wrong when you finally come visit me.
Frosty-hole made me laugh pretty hard, though.
The whole time I was reading this entry all I could think about was how you totally neglected to give Wendy’s a “(YES!)” … even though you went there twice … wtf?
Allow me to respond for Katie on this and explain that the lack of a “YES!” for Wendy’s was intentional. While Wendy’s isn’t bad or anything, it just doesn’t compare to the other stuff, and we actually spent time complaining about how we can’t believe we actually ate there twice when we could have made more trips to Dairy Queen instead.
When you write it out like that, it becomes a little embarrassing that we actually complained about only getting Dairy Queen THREE TIMES IN FIVE DAYS.
I still don’t think that’s a good excuse. Sure this post was written after you complained about Wendy’s, but there must’ve been a point when you went there the first time that you were thinking “YES! Let’s go to Wendy’s!” All I’m saying is that it deserves a small “YES” recognition, even if the second trip might get the cold shoulder.
Plus, there’s a Wendy’s a few blocks away from Kamran’s apartment, and every time I’m in there, some old lady or another is trying to get me to help her up the stairs with her value menu chicken nuggets, and I’m not having it.
This post was AWESOME! “Ode to Fast Food” I love it!
I don’t even want to talk to my dad about health care til he has time to forget about this debate. I was so excited watching the speech last night, and the whole time, I was picturing my dad in his living room looking just as grumpy as all the Republicans we saw. *sigh* Is it really a generation gap thing? I can’t believe it has to be that severe. Wow. So scary.
The difference between my dad and me is that I have an open mind and want to hear every side of the story, whereas he just wants to call Keith Olbermann an idiot and make me feel bad for not reading the Russian communist newspaper every day.
Maybe you’re right about the generation gap thing. My dad is 50-something and has worries about his body starting to break down soon, while I’m half his age and don’t even have a doctor. But seriously!, what’s the big deal about making sure everyone has the same access to healthcare?
My stepmom asked me what I’d do if I had a brain tumor (like my mom did) and got put on a waiting list, and I told her I’d assume the people ahead on me on the list needed treatment sooner than I did. The idea of treating other people as equal to her didn’t seem to compute.
Grumpy Republicans indeed.
That whole first paragraph is so EXACTLY the difference between my dad and me! How funny!
And, what’s pretty ironic about this is that my hubby is several years older than me (15 yrs), and he turned 50 this year, and he’s a *strong* Obama supporter. He has never voted before in his life, but he made the effort this year because so many were against Obama for ridiculously irrational reasons. He said that if he could undo just one “Bradley effect” vote, he’d be happy.
Now I NEED a frosty. :)