hell trip
My trip to Orlando post is going to be very, very long so it’s under the cut.
Where to start….
My mom’s dad was in the hospital in Gainesville, Florida with multiple problems, including his kidneys shutting down, so my mom and I decided to go see him, as it looked pretty grim. By Monday he was making an unexpected recovery but still needed us to bring him home because his girlfriend is phobic about driving by herself.
I left with my mom on Tuesday…I don’t usually stop at hotels on trips, but as she didn’t get to my house to pick me up until 2pm, I had no choice…so that sucked. It’s a 14 hour trip so there should have been no reason to stop for the night on the way there.
So Wednesday morning we set out from somewhere in S.C. and drove the rest of the way to Gainesville. We had to go at breakneck fuckin speed because my stubborn ass grandfather decided he was leaving the hospital a day early. So we finally get there to get him and he looks like shit. He’s down to 152 pounds, but he’s still as cranky as ever, so I’m sure the poor nurses were grateful to see him go. We had to take him to the pharmacy, where I saw the first sign of things to come the rest of the week. He looked over the prescription, and before I could stop him, crosses off some of the medications! He refuses to do what he’s told, thinks he knows everything, and that doctors are just “quacks”. We drove him home to his girlfriend’s house where we were all going to be staying. I hate, hate, hate staying at other people’s houses. I don’t feel like I can ever relax. When we left for Florida I was under the impression that we were going to stay at my grandpa’s house by ourselves, but they just insisted we had to stay at Marianne’s….yay. So, here my mom and I are sharing a pull-out couch bed on her sun-porch for a week…double yay.
My grandfather, who has been on his back for months, decided now that he was out he was going to go 400 miles an hour in everything that he did. I just wanted to smack some sense into him. He insisted he had to take us to the mall on Thursday, and his girlfriend insisted that she just had to drive us around to do it. I do not make a good passenger under good circumstances, and the thought of these two old geezers being in control of the car I was in, in and around tons of other old geezers on the road, made me physically ill and upset to the point of tears. They would not let me just stay home. It really pissed me off. I did not need to go to the mall, but I went anyway just to shut them the hell up. So that really sucked. After we finally got back, my mom and I sat down to plan our trip into Orlando (for the bird store), and then to Winterhaven to see my Aunt. My grandfather got really pissy about the whole idea. I really. really pissed him off then by telling that we had planned the trip before we left, and that as he had spent the whole day bitching about how he hated Orlando and didn’t like my Aunt, he could just stay home. Since he couldn’t seem to quit bitching at me for being impatient and irresponsible, I just said whatever and went to bed.
By Friday I was really happy to be leaving their house for anywhere else. My mom and I stopped at Starbuck’s on the way to Orlando. That was nice. We hung out for an hour drinking coffee and checking out email, etc. We then went to a bird store that someone in the Parrot_Lovers community recommended. It was the high point of the whole trip. It was like walking into paradise. They had toys on every wall from floor to ceiling, and in between, on play stands, were six Macaws. You could walk right up to them and play with them. It was awesome. I took tons of pics, which I will post in a separate post. They also had a bird nursery where you could go and hold the babies. That was incredible. I got to play with a baby African Grey, a baby Cockatoo, and baby Tiels. We bought tons of toys for my birds back home as they were half the price of anything I can get here. After a few hours we left for Winterhaven. My Aunt is a complete flake, but unlike the rest of my family, I love her to death. She took us to lunch and we had a great time. I was telling her that I had headaches for the last couple of days, and she promptly informed me it was because my grandpa had been feeding me unleaded coffee for the last two days….gag, choke, ack! We drove home to Marianne’s and went to bed early because we wanted to go to several places around where my grandpa lives the next day.
So on Saturday morning my mom and I got ready to go out. We were going to a local coffee house to use their wifi, and then going to the bead store there. My grandpa decides he wants to take us on a boat ride that day, so he just has to go with us. Now first of all, I have spent the whole week listening to him tell me that he can’t see very well, so the idea of him toting me around a huge fucking lake, with crocs in it I might add, scares the shit out of me. Especially after the driving thing on Thursday (the woman was either going 70 or standing on her brakes…no middle ground at all). We tried to explain to him that we were going shopping and he wouldn’t have much fun where we were going, but NO, he just has to go….just fucking shoot me. Evidently he thinks we are just stupid women who will get lost without his he-man help. Never mind that we have printed maps to everywhere we were going and that it’s a small town. Whatever. So he gets in the car and we go. We went to the coffee house first, where he refuses to go in!This takes away any fun or relaxation I might have had, as I feel the need to rush through everything to he doesn’t burn to a crisp in the car. The wifi is down there anyway so we leave. We then try to find the bead store with no success because he is insisting at this point that we are on the wrong road no matter what the fuckin map says. So after calling to make sure where the hell it is we finally get there and he again refuses to get out of the car! Why the fuck did he go with us if he was just going to sit in the car and make me feel guilty?? He then decides, after coming into the store to chase us out for taking too long (duh…we’re women…in a bead store...hello?), that it’s too hot to go on a boat ride. (There is a God) So really, what was the point of him coming at all? By this time I am to the point of hitting him in the head with any handy large object. He then bitches all the way home about how long we took everywhere. Thank God we were leaving for home the next day.
Sunday morning I packed the car and told my mom she had 1 hour to chat. I just wanted to go home by then. At promptly one hour I told her to get the hell in the car so we could leave. We decided to go back to Starbuck’s for coffee and wifi and ended up back at the bird store somehow. We spent a few hours there and she left with a new bird LOL!! Her new cockatiel has deformed feet so she probably would not have sold otherwise. She is a really sweet bird. We finally got out of town at about 3pm…I told my mom that we should stop back into grandpa’s and tell him we had gotten lost and had spent all that time wandering around since we didn’t write down his repeated directions, but she didn’t think he would find it nearly as funny as we did.
We stopped Sunday night somewhere in North Carolina, and finally got home Monday night. I was never so glad to see my own house. I told my mom next time he gets sick she’s on her own.
Where to start….
My mom’s dad was in the hospital in Gainesville, Florida with multiple problems, including his kidneys shutting down, so my mom and I decided to go see him, as it looked pretty grim. By Monday he was making an unexpected recovery but still needed us to bring him home because his girlfriend is phobic about driving by herself.
I left with my mom on Tuesday…I don’t usually stop at hotels on trips, but as she didn’t get to my house to pick me up until 2pm, I had no choice…so that sucked. It’s a 14 hour trip so there should have been no reason to stop for the night on the way there.
So Wednesday morning we set out from somewhere in S.C. and drove the rest of the way to Gainesville. We had to go at breakneck fuckin speed because my stubborn ass grandfather decided he was leaving the hospital a day early. So we finally get there to get him and he looks like shit. He’s down to 152 pounds, but he’s still as cranky as ever, so I’m sure the poor nurses were grateful to see him go. We had to take him to the pharmacy, where I saw the first sign of things to come the rest of the week. He looked over the prescription, and before I could stop him, crosses off some of the medications! He refuses to do what he’s told, thinks he knows everything, and that doctors are just “quacks”. We drove him home to his girlfriend’s house where we were all going to be staying. I hate, hate, hate staying at other people’s houses. I don’t feel like I can ever relax. When we left for Florida I was under the impression that we were going to stay at my grandpa’s house by ourselves, but they just insisted we had to stay at Marianne’s….yay. So, here my mom and I are sharing a pull-out couch bed on her sun-porch for a week…double yay.
My grandfather, who has been on his back for months, decided now that he was out he was going to go 400 miles an hour in everything that he did. I just wanted to smack some sense into him. He insisted he had to take us to the mall on Thursday, and his girlfriend insisted that she just had to drive us around to do it. I do not make a good passenger under good circumstances, and the thought of these two old geezers being in control of the car I was in, in and around tons of other old geezers on the road, made me physically ill and upset to the point of tears. They would not let me just stay home. It really pissed me off. I did not need to go to the mall, but I went anyway just to shut them the hell up. So that really sucked. After we finally got back, my mom and I sat down to plan our trip into Orlando (for the bird store), and then to Winterhaven to see my Aunt. My grandfather got really pissy about the whole idea. I really. really pissed him off then by telling that we had planned the trip before we left, and that as he had spent the whole day bitching about how he hated Orlando and didn’t like my Aunt, he could just stay home. Since he couldn’t seem to quit bitching at me for being impatient and irresponsible, I just said whatever and went to bed.
By Friday I was really happy to be leaving their house for anywhere else. My mom and I stopped at Starbuck’s on the way to Orlando. That was nice. We hung out for an hour drinking coffee and checking out email, etc. We then went to a bird store that someone in the Parrot_Lovers community recommended. It was the high point of the whole trip. It was like walking into paradise. They had toys on every wall from floor to ceiling, and in between, on play stands, were six Macaws. You could walk right up to them and play with them. It was awesome. I took tons of pics, which I will post in a separate post. They also had a bird nursery where you could go and hold the babies. That was incredible. I got to play with a baby African Grey, a baby Cockatoo, and baby Tiels. We bought tons of toys for my birds back home as they were half the price of anything I can get here. After a few hours we left for Winterhaven. My Aunt is a complete flake, but unlike the rest of my family, I love her to death. She took us to lunch and we had a great time. I was telling her that I had headaches for the last couple of days, and she promptly informed me it was because my grandpa had been feeding me unleaded coffee for the last two days….gag, choke, ack! We drove home to Marianne’s and went to bed early because we wanted to go to several places around where my grandpa lives the next day.
So on Saturday morning my mom and I got ready to go out. We were going to a local coffee house to use their wifi, and then going to the bead store there. My grandpa decides he wants to take us on a boat ride that day, so he just has to go with us. Now first of all, I have spent the whole week listening to him tell me that he can’t see very well, so the idea of him toting me around a huge fucking lake, with crocs in it I might add, scares the shit out of me. Especially after the driving thing on Thursday (the woman was either going 70 or standing on her brakes…no middle ground at all). We tried to explain to him that we were going shopping and he wouldn’t have much fun where we were going, but NO, he just has to go….just fucking shoot me. Evidently he thinks we are just stupid women who will get lost without his he-man help. Never mind that we have printed maps to everywhere we were going and that it’s a small town. Whatever. So he gets in the car and we go. We went to the coffee house first, where he refuses to go in!This takes away any fun or relaxation I might have had, as I feel the need to rush through everything to he doesn’t burn to a crisp in the car. The wifi is down there anyway so we leave. We then try to find the bead store with no success because he is insisting at this point that we are on the wrong road no matter what the fuckin map says. So after calling to make sure where the hell it is we finally get there and he again refuses to get out of the car! Why the fuck did he go with us if he was just going to sit in the car and make me feel guilty?? He then decides, after coming into the store to chase us out for taking too long (duh…we’re women…in a bead store...hello?), that it’s too hot to go on a boat ride. (There is a God) So really, what was the point of him coming at all? By this time I am to the point of hitting him in the head with any handy large object. He then bitches all the way home about how long we took everywhere. Thank God we were leaving for home the next day.
Sunday morning I packed the car and told my mom she had 1 hour to chat. I just wanted to go home by then. At promptly one hour I told her to get the hell in the car so we could leave. We decided to go back to Starbuck’s for coffee and wifi and ended up back at the bird store somehow. We spent a few hours there and she left with a new bird LOL!! Her new cockatiel has deformed feet so she probably would not have sold otherwise. She is a really sweet bird. We finally got out of town at about 3pm…I told my mom that we should stop back into grandpa’s and tell him we had gotten lost and had spent all that time wandering around since we didn’t write down his repeated directions, but she didn’t think he would find it nearly as funny as we did.
We stopped Sunday night somewhere in North Carolina, and finally got home Monday night. I was never so glad to see my own house. I told my mom next time he gets sick she’s on her own.