I Suck At Having Lunch With My Parents

yesterday, my parents stopped by for lunch.

as part of the duties bestowed upon me as being the only son still residing within the commonwealth of massachusetts, i get to read and explain to my parents all the mail that they do not "understand". and by understand, i mean... hardly looked at and read. at least, that is the frustration that i sometimes feel when they ask me to read their mail.

of course, my parents do have some validity to their claim. my parents, after all, are not fluent in written english. (and truth be told, they are not all that fluent in verbal english.) i just sometimes wish they would at least take the initiative and attempt to make out the words or something themselves, as opposed to just assuming that i will be able to read and explain things to them. i would even be okay if they humored me and pretended.

anyway, enough about my griping. my parents stopped by with one of their friends (susan). when my parents originally asked about stopping by for lunch, i told them that i would make lunch for them (my legendary mac 'n cheese). so, i spent the morning preparing the meal... followed by a quick trip to karen's grandparents.

karen's grandparents in hanover needed technical help with one of their televisions... and their phone. and with my apparent genetics... i was the person to ask. just kidding. i was happy to help them out. (for anyone curious, it turns out that there really was no issue with the television and their phone has a loose connection.)

following the brief visit with karen's grandparents, karen and i then worked on the yard: karen working on her garden; me on mowing the lawn before the rain came. we didn't get too far into our yard work before my parents and susan arrived.

and as typical with my parents, they brought food... even though i told them that i had prepared lunch. this is why i suck at having lunch with my parents. i try to do things for them so that they can relax and enjoy themselves... only that they end up doing these other unexpected things. as it turned out, their friend susan was craving scallion pancakes and crescent rolls... so my parents brought them. thus, i quickly made the additional items along with the mac 'n cheese.

anyway, i know i should not complain about my parents. they mean well and i love them whole-heartedly. lunch actually went well. susan had asked to look at our wedding photos because she had never seen them. so we spent much of the time after lunch looking at pictures. my poor purple saturn was in one of those pictures. it was nice to remember that day.

my parents, and susan for that matter, also enjoyed the mac 'n cheese meal. in fact, my mom now wants the recipe. in return, my mom offered to give me her recipe for scallion pancakes. who would have thought that my mom and i would be trading recipes? nevertheless, i am glad my parents enjoyed lunch. it's the least i could do for them.