Mutant Summit 5: A Mutant Goes A-Travelin' Part 2

Continued from part 1...

Day Three:

Fondue And You

This is a day of recuperation. Well, more or less, because my sister, brother-in-law and niece are due over in the afternoon, so my plans for 24 hour hibernation are squelched. Lissa and I have already made plans to meet the next day. I'm to arrive early so that we can have quality time before Drew and Lady Luck arrive. Cool!

It's not really a mutantly day, but that's okay. I eat a cheesesteak (mmmmmcheesesteak), watch the Belmont Stakes (Afleet Alex ruled) and kick some major family backside in a Scattergories marathon. SoM2 acquits herself very well but SoM1 has to do some fast talking after he answers the question, "Something found underground beginning with the letter H" with the word, "Hat". I'd been asking him for MONTHS where his new Wisconsin Badgers baseball cap was!

Day Four:

Oh... will you two grow UP?

After a leisurely late breakfast, I abandon my parents to the tender mercies of the spawn - or is it the other way around? - and drive over to Lissa and Duckie's new house. It's... very nice. (More on that later.) We banter for a little while then drive to a little but awesome cheesesteak shop where Duckie worked as a teenager. They understand from months of my whining to Liss on AIM that I'm cheesesteak deprived and therefore they have taken it upon themselves to rectify the situation before I expire from malnutrition as only a native of Philly can understand it. This is true friendship. This is nobility in its purest form. There is NO freakin' way I'm going to tell them what I had for supper last night. Bonus!

After lunch, Lissa and I go for a walk to see her neighborhood. All of it. Someday the muscle tremors in my legs will cease.

When we get back, Duckie and I settle down to drink iced tea and banter about 80's music trivia while Lissa becomes a dangerous, knife-wielding whirling dervish as she prepares various sauces and dips for the fondue. [Note: There are ingredients in Lissa's cupboards that I've never even heard of before!] Gamely ignoring the fact that his beloved is now feverishly butchering what appears to be an entire cow into bite-sized niblets, Duckie hauls out his Hooters CD collection. (The band, not the restaurant!) I am in awe. We also discuss our ongoing rivalry in the Hollywood Stock Exchange game. As of right now, I'm still winning. I tell him that I made a massive chunk of change on The Island. He made his fortune with Madagascar. (Postscript: The Island tanked at the box office but I'd already dumped my shares. I rule.)

Lissa finishes the pre-meal prep, but the refrigerator is already full to bursting. I suspect calculus is used to fit everything else in there. Are we expecting an army?

Preparations complete, we settle down to wait for Drew and Lady Luck.

We wait.

And we wait.

We wait some more.

We complete every conversational topic known to modern man and after a moment of dead silence, automatically reset to the default. Yes, the weather sure is mighty nice, we agree.

The phone rings.

Lissa and I giggle hysterically while Duckie patiently explains to our MIA mutant just how lost he is, and how to correct this. It takes a while.

We wait.

The Justice League of Philadelphia

At last our lost sheep arrive, and yes, they are sheepish indeed.

We adjourn to the formal dining room. (I don't even have an informal dining room!) The meal begins with a course of cheese fondue with bread and apples for our dipping pleasure. This is followed by more meat than you can shake a cattle prod at. FOUR kinds, I tell you!

We all get along great. Better yet, no one gets burned beyond recognition from the boiling oil or stabbed with a fondue fork, so the meal has to be considered an unqualified success. (What does that mean anyway? What the heck is a qualified success? Do you get a plaque or a letter of commendation or what?)

After clearing the table, it's time for dessert. No, I am not kidding. We waddle into the kitchen and have a lovely white chocolate fondue with fresh fruit. There is also pound cake, which is yummy, but doesn't stand up well to the rigors of being dipped in melted goo. What goes into the pot, does not seem to emerge. I suspect that the infamous salsa shark might have adapted to a new habitat.

During and after dessert, we pass around a baby name book. Yes, christening the imminent ducklet is even more fun than Scattergories. If I remember correctly, Atticus and Spartacus are big crowd favorites.

As it's getting late, Drew and Lady Luck take their leave. We finish cleaning up the kitchen, chat for a few minutes more and then I retreat to the guest room. Drew, who has been here before, is correct about the bookshelf. Ayn Rand is in ready supply and if Lissa should ever decide to sell them all at once, there would be a market glut that would no doubt bring Amazon.com crashing to its knees.

Not a huge Rand fan, I cuddle up with Bloom County instead and fall asleep to dream sweet penguin dreams.

Day 5

The Mutant Reviewer at the ready

Duckie has already left for work when Lissa and I stagger into a state approximating consciousness. In a yin to the yang of yesterday's gourmet feast, we have pop-tarts for breakfast. Duckie is going to be business tripping, so we make plans to get together in a few days for pizza and a mutant viewing - the movie to be decided later, but I have a feeling that Daniel Radcliffe is going to be involved.

Hugs are exchanged and then it's off for "home" and a nap. Around lunchtime, the spawn and I join family and dear friends for a nice visit and a steak dinner. I have become quite the carnivore during this trip. Late afternoon is still plenty warm enough for a dip in the pool. It might be my imagination that a great deal of water is displaced when I hop in. It might not be. I decide not to look at a scale for the next five or six months.

Day 6

Oil... oil NOW!

This is a non-summit day. I fill the morning hours by lazing by the pool and developing the strangest sunburn ever. It's all streaky and weird. Other highlights of the day include teaching SoM2 "Heart and Soul" on the piano, eating cheesesteak stromboli (YES!!!! MORE CHEESESTEAK!!!!!), shopping for sunburn ointment and watching "The Beautician and the Beast" with Mom, Dad and SoM2. Fran Drescher and Timothy Dalton? Surreal. Dad seems fascinated by the way I feverishly chicken-scratch quotes and Didja Notices in my trusty spiral bound notebook. Does he envy my mutantly bearing, or does he just think that I’ve finally lost my marbles? I dare not ask.

Day 7

For a change of pace, Lissa drives down to our neck of the woods - specifically to meet my parents and convince them that she is not a crazed killer. To be honest, this is more Lissa's hang-up than theirs. After all, HER mom thought I was an axe-murderer. (I don't know why. It isn't like I ever let Guido out of the trunk - even though the voices all told me to.) Later, under direct and ruthless questioning, my Dad will scratch his head and admit that Lissa isn't at all the sort of person he expected. I suspect that my playing selections of Justin's gift CD to SoM2 before breakfast this morning might have skewed his opinion of my friends somewhat. Lissa is nice and normal and pleasant and soft-spoken. (At least until you really get to know her.) I have a feeling Dad was expecting Egon Spengler's love child or something. He is relieved.

Next time, I think I'll invite Kyle over.

"We will watch... Gigli!"

"Getting to know you"'s out of the way, we herd the SoM's into the car and head off to the Exton Square Mall and their lovely food court (it has real trees in it!) for Chik-Fil-A sandwiches. Here's a little factoid about yours truly. I LOVE Chik-Fil-A sandwiches. I can't seem to find them in the cold, harsh frontier of the midwest. (Honestly, no cheesesteaks, no hoagies, no scrapple, no Chik-Fil-A... it's a wonder I haven't starved to death!) While I'm trying to eat mine with a little more poise than a shark on fresh chum, an indignant little voice blurts, "HEY! There's a PICKLE in my SANDWICH!" Lissa and I both assure SoM2 that pickles are standard equipment in Chik-Fil-A sandwiches. She subsides, but not without rolling her eyes at these foreign heathen ways. We buy her ice cream and all is forgiven.

Afterwards we meander through a movie/music type store and look at a lot of cool and disturbing stuff that would fit into Justin's decorating scheme quite nicely. Then we embarrass the children (poor children) by leafing through movie posters and loudly debating who the "Hotties" are. (Clive Owen is yummy - especially in Sin City black and white.) I compound this by then asking SoM2 who SHE thinks is hot. Although she is mortified, Orlando Bloom seems to get high marks. I suppose Legolas does have better personal hygiene than Aragorn. SoM1 attempts revenge by blurting to Lissa that I want to "marry Ewan McGregor". Ha! Like the entire English speaking world doesn't already know that? Sheesh!

What are you lounging for? You guys have deadlines!

We drive back to the 'rents and part ways temporarily as Lissa has a doctor's appointment. SoM2 and I hit the pool for about an hour - hey it is a vacation you know - before getting ready to drive out to the Mutant Outpost. For some reason, SoM1 decides that he'd rather bury himself alive in a vat of weevils than accompany us. Coward.

It takes quite a while to get to Lissa's - partially because it's rush hour and partially because we get stuck behind an aging and consumptive dump truck. I use this time to explain to SoM2 that Lissa has a very nice house in a very nice neighborhood. Certainly a nicer house that our house, in a neighborhood nicer than our neighborhood. Perhaps sensing my insecurity, SoM2 gives me a warm and heartfelt lecture about quality being more important than quantity. She tells me how much she loves our little house, and that she'd never want to live in a big house because it'd be so impractical to keep clean, and that I work really hard to keep a roof over our heads and food in our tummies and by golly I'm the best gosh-darn Mommy in the whole wide world.

I really love this kid.

In Lissa's driveway, I see SoM2's head start to swivel as she takes in the neighborhood. Her pupils dilate. This bodes ill.

Lissa greets us in the foyer. Yes, she has a foyer. With a cathedral ceiling. There's a chandelier in it. Liss, amused by the wide-eyes and dropped jaw of my youngest, gives her the grand tour. Halfway through, SoM2 turns to me and demands, "Mom, why aren't WE rich?"

So much for quality over quantity.

Lissa suggests that SoM2 consider a career in science. After all, it's been good to her and Duckie. SoM2 who has, until now, been the complete liberal arts poster child, looks thoughtful. I don't try to dissuade her. Someone's going to have to shell out for my nursing home, after all!

For no particular reason, we decide to take a walk. (Lissa walks. If you visit Lissa for any length of time, you will walk. Remember this. Wear sturdy shoes. Bring an oxygen tank.) I am struck by the sheer number of random neighbors who congratulate Liss on her delicate condition. Clearly there is a billboard up somewhere announcing it to the entire world. When I was pregnant, the only random commentary I got was a scathing lecture from some little old lady in the supermarket about the penalties of 'living in sin'. (I'd removed my wedding ring since my hands had swollen into the size of catchers' mitts.) Ah, good times.

It's definitely on the Hades edge of warm, but we survive and retreat for drinks and to order pizza and cheesebread. (While Lissa and I believe that a topping rich 'za is a happy and fulfilled 'za, SoM2 maintains that applying anything other than cheese and sauce is a direct violation of the Geneva Convention.)

After supper, with an eye on the clock, we adjourn to the third-world country sized family room and watch Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. While most of our thoughts are destined to be immortalized as a Mutant Viewing, this is a summary of what I learned:

1. Lissa is really really really really really really really really OBSESSED with this series. Any time the movie strayed from the book's canon, she gibbered at the screen in a string of barely comprehensible invective augmented by rude gestures. She even blew a razzberry at the screen once. Vicious stuff!

2. SoM2 is not to be trusted with a digital camera. She is sneaky and awful and made us look fat.

3. If you love your life, do not EVER suggest to Lissa, even as a joke, that Jude Law could have played the part of Lupin. Just don't. She has a blackbelt you know.

After the movie, it's closing in on 11:00 pm, so hugs are exchanged and a sleepy SoM2 and I return to the 'rents house. My mom is waiting up. Apparently I am out past curfew, and they were so worried, and there could have been an accident, or a mugger, and you just don't know about people these days and...

I think I'm grounded.

Day 8

Mutant Meetings officially adjourned, there isn't much to report. The 'rents, spawn and I spend the morning at Valley Forge, (the winter encampment of the Continental Army) looking at memorabilia and such from the American Revolution. Touring the tiny home that served as quarters for George Washington and twenty-some other people serves to convince SoM2 that maybe our own housing situation isn't quite as dire as she thought. Whew. Thanks George!

Day 9

[[WARNING: Anyone with a weak stomach should not read about this day! Including me!]]

I don't WANNA go home! Still, I pack the car, pour in another quart of oil, load the offspring, hug the 'rents and get us on the road at a reasonable hour. The thing that really SUCKS about being a mommy is that you can't bawl like a baby when you have to leave YOUR mommy.

Tragedy strikes when I realize, three hours into the drive, that I can't find my U2 Greatest Hits CD. Or my hat. I speculate that SoM1 might have buried it when I wasn't paying attention.

The situation doesn't improve when, as we cross the Ohio border, SoM1 tells me that his stomach feels "funny". I hand him a plastic bag, just in case. Thirty seconds later, I am oh so glad that I did.

We stop at several rest areas, losing a lot of time, but trying to keep SoM1's tummy settled and plastic bags in ready supply.

Just east of Fremont, Ohio, SoM1's face is noxious green glow in the rearview mirror. Making the snap decision that enough is enough, I urge him to hang in there. We exit the interstate, pay the toll, he's still hanging in - good boy - turn in at the first motel we come to - he's doing great - pull into the parking lot by a grassy area - it's okay - I leap out of the car, turn around -

The MRFH PG-13 language rating prohibits me from recounting the next three dozen words that went through my brain. (One or two of which might have been said aloud, but I doubt either of the kids heard me.)

I wish he'd gotten out of the car.

I really wish he'd remembered the plastic bag.

Day 10

After a light (and bland) breakfast and a side trip to the closest Wal-Mart where I purchase no less than five car deodorizing products - none of which is 100% effective but I'll try anything - we are back on the road. I make good time, because I don't have any option. I am motivated by having to be at work at six o'clock tomorrow morning and further spurred on by the medley of noxious odors emanating from the back seat. At least no one needs a plastic bag, but SoM2's nose is at permanent wrinkle. All goes well until Chicago where we hit gridlock. We average two miles an hour. Other "commuters" amuse themselves by throwing hamburger buns (they came prepared) out of their cars to initiate seagull wars. Periodically, SoM2 fills the air with another blast of deodorizing aerosol. I really miss that U2 CD.

Home Sweet Home

Finally we make it back onto familiar turf and stop by work to consult with my co-worker/super friend/dogsitter deluxe just to make sure the house is still standing and no one died. Given the all clear, we head for home. I greet the hounds, check email and we return to whatever passes for routine existence in our dysfunctional little household.

Man.

I really need a vacation.