Marge Madness

Just got back from 10 days on the road. Lucas, my SO and I drove from NY to Florida... first to Orlando where we visited my mother, spent four nights at the timeshare (see below) and then went down to West Palm Beach for the weekend before driving back.

As many of you already know, my mother is... how you say... "different". The first night of our visit, the four of us sat around her dining room table. At one point, she said something like "Our family doesn't change jobs a lot, and doesn't move around a lot." I chuckled and said something like "Speak for yourself", meaning that I have had several jobs and have lived in several different places since moving out of the house where I grew up.

Thankfully, the SO in question has known me for a long time and is aware of my marital history (and not bothered by it), because she immediately looked at him and said "Well.... her and all of her husbands! Elizabeth Taylor over there!" Ay yi yi... I'm sure my son really appreciated that too. We laughed about it later, but seriously... how did she know that this isn't a sensitive topic for us? Or doesn't she care?



Xanax and Pepto Bismol got me through the 24 hours or so that we spent with her. My son stayed for a few days and they had a great time together. She taught him bridge (he knew the basics from a Marx Brothers movie), they played golf and did crossword puzzles. He doesn't have the same history with her, but by Thursday he was ready to go as well.

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Other notes from the road:



- When you go to Universal Studios in Orlando, and you're told to put all of your loose belongings in a locker prior to boarding The Revenge of the Mummy ride, there's a reason for that. (between the Mommy and the Mummy, this was a traumatic trip!)

- The Xpress Pass is totally worth it. We didn't wait more than 2 minutes for anything. The normal wait time for most attractions was 40-50 minutes.

- Going to a theme park without kids is more fun. I'm just sayin'.

- The GPS isn't always right.

- When you need to stop for gas in Washington DC, don't go to the gas station where the guy inside is protected by bulletproof glass.

- Playing Trivial Pursuit on a long drive makes it go really fast.

- Having my son reading the questions makes it go even faster, particularly when he reads "mastectomy" as "malestectomy", and "Wild Bill Hickok" as "Wild Bill High-cock".

- A week of warmth in February is a recharge for the soul.