Man, I feel very lucky to have such easy parents that cause me so little trouble.

Buffista Island looks better every day, and I'm actually not joking.

Maybe we could find a cheap castle?

Dracula's castle is for sale. Not particularly cheap, I don't think, though.

The thing is, my parents ARE easy. I love them to death and offer them up to anyone. It's just, we all came with buttons installed to push. They don't fuss when I say 'can't do that' or 'I didn't do that because x.'

But they are getting more perspective-blind as they get older (which, cue start of unease about senility etc.)

I mean, my mom once told me my visits home from college became so much better for all of us when I figured out how to come home as a guest, not a daughter and she did the same. (Er, not that I wasn't a daughter, just that we all shifted expectations in accordance to my independence from them.)

Which was a WHOA, INSIGHT. YES.

And there's some backtracking on that in the past few years. Not that issue specifically, just the awareness.

I adore my parents, and we spend all kinds of time with them since we've moved here. But as good as this town has been to us, I do wish we could go back to Yardley. And it's just not sensible now -- my brother's still in the Navy and may get posted overseas again, and my parents are getting older. My mom's been chronically ill with lupus since I was a child, and she has all kinds of other orthopedic issues, so more surgery is in her future. I don't resent them, because I love them, and we could probably live an hour or so away, but moving to any other part of the country just wouldn't make sense.

It's horrible to be stuck somewhere you don't like, msbelle. I'm sorry Texas didn't work out the way you wanted it to.

I just finished listening to this week's Wait Wait. Pretty good stuff.

Oh msbelle, I hope things get easier. I totally know what you mean about having to ask, and resenting the asking.

msbelle, I'm so sorry.

I've got so much admiration for you guys who live close (or far) and have good understanding/connection with your parents. I started to write a Whipple rest of a thing and erased it because broken record. Buffista island sounds good.

Sparky, I hope K had an awesome bday yesterday!

Oh msbelle, I am so sorry. Life has been emotionally exhausting for you for a long time. If you weren't weary and resentful on some level it would be because you were burying your emotions and that would not be healthy either.

I have no complaints about either of our families. Totally hit the jackpot with my mom. We live a couple hours away which works well enough. With mom turning 93 this summer it is for me not at all an option to be further away.

She goes back north for the summer tomorrow and I will follow shortly. When we are in Otter Lake she is right next door and I see her many times a day. It is an essential opportunity for me right now. We lived apart for many years when I was younger.

I know I haven't really talked about it, but this summer may be her last. Her heart valves are not good. The cardiologist says it is just old age and nothing can be done. She sleeps much of time and has no stamina at all. Her mind is about perfect and I noticed the last few visits that she is teaching her husband about things like paying the bills. She taught him to cook and do laundry and such the last last few years. She knows how to read a calendar and is content. She has told us that she has much more she would like to do, but she has lived a a whole lot longer than she ever imagined possible. In her immediate family the longest life was 42 years.

And now that I unexpectedly poured all that out I am going to go cry in the shower!

That's so hard, Laura.