Weekend Visitors

It was a really hectic weekend. Kelley and her friend Aaron came from Arizona and I had a couchsurfer from Italy come at the same time. Plus Karrie took off work and Rich was here – it was a full house. On Friday, I picked up Kelley and Aaron at the airport, then went and had lunch with Dad, then went with Dad to go pick up Alex at the train station, then took Kelley, Aaron, and Alex back to Louisa. It was my poor timing with Alex, but eventually we all made it home for the feast. Karrie cooked dinner and both she and I had made desserts (gluten free chocolate cake (KAR), gluten free oatmeal cookies, and fancy sweet potato pie (Me)). I was stuffed. And only minorly over in points.

Alex wanted to come to my house bc when he envisions the US, he thinks cities like New York, Washinton, and Philadelphia bc that is what he has been exposed to. He had been covering the Pennsylvania primary in Philadelphia and DC and then taking some time to travel. He marveled at all the space and green-ness everywhere. He was interested in the Central Virginian newspaper, so we stopped by the office. The CV has over 9,000 subscribers. He wanted to learn more about the power plant so I told him what I knew bc the visitor's center wasn't open when we stopped by. I took him to colonial dance practice and he was a superstar. He did all the tricky stuff right the first time - stuff that took me years to learn! We went to nearby battlefields, winery, and drove some scenic backroads. I told them there wasn't much to do here and as a result he mostly had to deal with my family - which for once was sort of all together.

Alex was able to try some new 'ámerican' foods while he was here. Kelley introduced him to slurpees from the Wawa. I took him for marble slab ice cream, once I learned his love for it and that he had never had whatever he wanted mixed together. He thought it was fantastic. He also tried grits and biscuits and gravy at Joe's while speaking in Italian to Joe, the owner. He may have had some other new stuff too. He certainly didn't go hungry.

For Kelley's birthday, I got her a Neti pot (with Karrie's help) and of course we made her demonstrate it on the back porch for us. The benefit of the use of the Neti pot is still not for certain, but I think Kelley is willing to try it again. Later that evening after dance practice, I returned to look at ear wax from the ear candles - another homeopathic remedy procured by Karrie for Kelley's birthday, and our general disgust, enjoyment, and laughter. It was prety gross, so of course I had to lay down and pop a burning candle into my ear to suction the wax out to see if mine was even grosser. It was. I win. The whole process is a bit weird. But my ears do feel cleaner and my hearing was a lot sharper immediately following the use of the ear candle.

On Sunday, after a FANTASTIC MEAL with Dad (an italian dish that Alex thought was FAB), I took Kelley and Aaron to the airport and then took Alex to the train station. There was some credit card confusion with Amtrak, but eventually we got him a ticket and he got on the train back to DC. He will be returning to Italy in a week. I spent a lot of the weekend in the car. Blah. I am tired of being in cars, but it was nice to see Kelley and giggle hilariously with my family. Hopefully Alex didn't mind too much either.