NC summary

I don't even know if I mentioned this, but before I went back to work, I had this brainstorm that I should go visit my father and stepmother as a mother's/father's day present for the both of them. We haven't visited them in about 7 years, and my father hasn't met Maggie yet. I don't really need to get into the family dynamics - but a good way to sum up my father is that he is a racist, homophobic, sexist, very far to the right Republican, type two diabetic, married 6 times jerk. My stepmother is a sweetie. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, but whatever. Anyway - she helped a lot on her visit after the twins were born, and I thought I could suck it up for one weekend and go visit them.

Which was this past weekend. I only took Maggie (visions of Cam on an airplane include duck tape to keep him in the seat and a lot of crying. Cameron will NOT BE CONTAINED). She was a complete angel. And I came back with a bunch of good stories for cocktail parties.

• Losing my carry-on baggage. Twice. In order to go to the Greenville, NC airport, I had to take a regional jet. My carry on was too big (pretty much any carry on was too big if it wasn't a small purse) to actually carry on, so they gate checked it. And in the process, managed to lose it. In that bag was Maggie's meds (that needed to be refrigerated), a hand made quilt for my stepmother, all our clothes, diapers, ect. I did finally get it back the next morning... but not without less than 2 hours on the phone. And more than once I was told I shouldn't check important things. AUGH! And on the way home, they managed to put my stuff from the gate check into the normal checked stuff - but for a small bit I thought it was lost again.
• Going out to eat. Saturday night, dad asked if I wanted to go out for raw oysters. I thought that raw oysters in NC was an interesting choice (I was thinking BBQ was more a speciality) but figured what the heck. It was an all you can eat Chinese place. All you can eat raw oysters. At a Chinese restaurant. I didn't have any.
• Church. I went to church with him. Let's just say that an Anglican church in the bible belt is a bit different than a Unitarian Universalist Church in Massachusetts.

Maggie was a super trooper the entire trip, with big smiles for everyone. I'm glad we went - I know it was a big deal for my dad. We may not be close, but he is my father, and I feel that he should have some sort of connection with my kids.