Adventures with giant sea bugs and the house of ick

[fbhjr]

Although yesterday was my Mother In Law’s 69th birthday, she did not feel up to being taken out. But, today was a nice day.


So, we set of to go get her for lunch.
She lives off in Barre, which is about an hour from here no mater how you go. But, it is a nice drive.


Despite winning $1,000,000 in scratch tickets, twice, my MIL’s boyfriend lives in a trailer out in the woods, and she lives there with him.


My wife and I are both allergic to cigarette smoke and animal fur. He’s a chain smoker and they have a cat. As they’re both getting up in age, they tend to keep the place closed up tight to keep it warm. So, not much air circulation. Hence, I refer to it as the House of Ick.
I waited outside while my wife prepared himself to go in.


But, go in she did.


She gathered up her mother and her boyfriend and we went off to lunch.


My MIL had the lobster. (Giant sea bug.)


She hurt her hand cracking open the shell, so my wife helped her get the rest out.


My wife is one of the most efficient people I know at getting lobster meat out of the shell. My aunt is the only person I know who is better at it. So, she got more out of the lobster then her mother could eat. As she was having the lobster roll herself, that worked out.
I had a fish combination platter that had pretty much everything except the lobster. It was OK. But, I had expected more than two scollops as adding them to the plate cost $2. They were good and all. But, at $1 each they weren’t worth it.

Anyone who has read my wife’s adventures has heard about her mother’s boyfriend, or pig-heart as he is sometimes known due to what was used to repair his heart in one of his many surgeries.
Well, here he is:


Getting them home after lunch was much more of an adventure.
Usually, it is just a matter of driving them down the state highway that they live near.


But, when we got to the center of town, it was blocked off.


They were having some sort of Thanksgiving/Christmas/Holiday parade through the center of town and closed the whole place down.
Now, in bigger towns you can just go over one street and go around. But, in Barre, all roads go into the center of town. So, if they close the center, you literally can’t get to the other side.
So, we took one of the other roads out of town and tried to find a cross road that would bring us back to the main road on the other side.

Despite is many heart attacks and at least one stroke, pig-heart was giving us the directions for the trip. He recognized a road and we went down it, despite the pavement ending.


The dirt road seemed to go on for a very long time.



I was somewhat reassured that there was a pickup truck following the same road in front of us.


It reminded me very much of a time when my wife and I were in Ireland and got lost near Wexford. We circled a mountain without being able to find the direction off for the city.
Maybe this reminded me of it because the pickup truck in front of us kept driving on the left as they do there.


But, we got them home. Instead of it being 3.7 miles, it was 10.2, many of them on dirt.




But, we did get them home.


My mother in law seemed to have a good birthday.


I did get to see the shower stall that cost them more money then my wife’s car and mine combined.


The way home was much easier.


Things in the center of town had wound down and we were able to get across the common and back home without problem.
We got home about 5, but it seemed much later.
Hopefully she had a good birthday.

Comments

[saeble.livejournal.com]

I guess you can only hope he has his two million squirreled away under the house. I'd say you should start bumping off all his next of kin too..:D

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Sadly I know that he spent it all in less than a year on more gambling...

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Damn...If you'd have known, you could have used those 3 other cross-streets I see on the Google map.

But, glad you found your way back, even with PH's help...Amazingly :P

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, each time we passed one I said "Shouldn't we take this one?"
I was told "No, we know a way around."
Ah well, we did get there...

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

The other issue with that is the way they blocked the center of town. (Blocked area added by me in red.)


You couldn't get to the close cross streets because of what they blocked. And, the only other one you could get to was one way the wrong way.
Granted, I did see a few cars trying that. And, if I had known 5 miles of dirt road lay along the path Pig-Heart would take, I might have risked it.
But, at the time it seemed to make sense not to go the wrong way down the street with all the police in town only 1 block away...