Family Visit

Iola

My sister and my nephew, Stephen, were at my parents’ house in Iola, my hometown this past weekend, so I decided to go and visit on Friday. I hadn’t seen my favorite little ginger (Stephen) for awhile.

It was a good visit. It was just the original four of us, plus Stephen. Just missing the husbands. At times it almost felt like back in the day before Erica (sister) or I went off to college and eventually moved out permanently. 

Netflix

Mom made a dinner of lasagna (not my favorite but a home-cooked meal that I didn’t have to cook was good!) and we sat and ate. Erica and I talked about This Is Us and some other shows we were both watching. Mom asked if there were any light-hearted shows she and Dad could watch on Netflix.

I recommended The Office, even though they’ve watched it before. I personally can re-watch The Office all the time. It actually helps calm me down when I am having anxiety. I’ve heard that a lot of people feel that way.

Erica mentioned Grace and Frankie (which I should try to watch myself). I reminded my mom that Riverdale is on Netflix, but I wasn’t sure if she would like it. Plus, I know my dad would definitely not like it. It’s not exactly geared toward men in their 60’s. 

Riverdale

Dad said that mom tried to get him to watch one episode and I asked him what happened in it. He said, “Just some...juvenile…bullshit.” HAHA! He wasn’t exactly wrong. I still like it. Riverdale is one of my guilty pleasures. At least it was. I don’t like how the last season ended and I’m not sure how I will like the 5th season. I’m a Bughead fan.

I even got Jeff into Riverdale. By accident. He sat down and watched a few with me when I was doing my binge-watch of the first 2 ½ seasons. When he got caught up, he wanted to watch the first episodes that he’d missed. So I re-watched with him. 

Anyways…

Boy Bands

Eventually, mom brought up Jeopardy (RIP Alex Trebek) and asked if I watched the episode with the boy band on it. I didn’t even know that was a thing. Dad said they got the question about the boy band right because they recognized him as “the ugly one”.

Every boy band has an unnecessary ugly band member. It’s just a fact. I don’t know much about BTS, but it seems they could have several unnecessary members.

I thought they had meant that a boy band was ON Jeopardy as contestants. Apparently, they just showed a picture of a boy band member and asked which boy band he was a member of. I’m still not sure what the actual answer was. My dad kept saying it was a picture of Danny and they answered Backstreet Boys. Danny is from New Kids on the Block.

“The Ugly One”

This led to an argument about which specific “ugly one” they were talking about so we could find out which band they were actually talking about. I had to google pictures of Backstreet Boys and my sister googled New Kids on the Block (our respective boy bands). 

Backstreet Boys (This is the image I showed my parents) I will note that none of them look ugly here)

New Kids on the Block

According to my parents, it was a picture of Howie from the Backstreet Boys, but they didn’t seem too sure based on the picture I showed them.

To be fair, none of them are actually ugly.

Stephen

After dinner, we played My Very First Orchard with Stephen because he needed something to do. He is still learning how the game works. He mostly wanted to touch the fruits and put them very close to his face.

Then we got out some Play-Dough while we all talked more at the kitchen table. Stephen picked up the Play-Dough scissors and said “scissors” in the weirdest was possible. It was hilarious to me.

While he was playing, he was saying stuff to himself, including something about treasure, and “the jewels are mine!”

Midwestern

To finish the evening, we played Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra (available from The Game Capital!).

At this point, I figured I needed to start heading out, so I got my things together and put on my coat. Then, in true mid-western fashion, I ended up sitting down and discussing Thanksgiving plans for a ½ hour before I actually walked out the door.

Buck

As I was pulling out of the driveway, my headlights fell onto a huge buck that was right across the road from my parents’ house. I wanted to get a picture because he almost looked fake, but he walked away.

I called my dad and let him know what I saw, so now he is going to be on the lookout for it. I hope he doesn’t get him, despite my enjoyment of the venison jerky I would get from it.