Father of Ken greeted me at KCI and we drove to the apartment of Brother of Ken in the giant metropolis of Baldwin City, Kansas to gather the remains of his latest move and take them home to Parsons. In the process of gathering these things, we had to go to his storage building, which is apparently a secret Soviet killer spider breeding ground. We finally arrived home in Parsons and I officially began my visit with my family.
Friday evening, I had dinner with with Mother, Father, Brother, Uncle, and Grandmother of Ken and Saturday I spent with Best Friend of Ken, who graciously came from Lawrence to see me. I made her go with me to see Mamma Mia (my second time, her first) and she made me see the new Batman movie--both were awesome.
Sunday I got to see St. Timothy's in person for the first time and was very impressed, of course. Then, Mother of Ken and I made a beeline for the Tulsa area to go shopping. It's funny that even though I live in New York, I get my best shopping done in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. I didn't take as many pictures of our shopping as I had planned to, but there are a few. Mother of Ken and I have a shopping strategy that has been well honed over the past 27 years--we can sniff out a 75% off rack like you would not believe. We even keep records of who has gotten the best deal--currently, I hold first place with 97% off. So, if you see us shopping, you should stay out of our way ;-)
Here are a few of the places that we went, starting with Kohl's:
Part of our strategy to shop efficiently is to gather everything that we think we might want to try on before we hit the fitting room--here's our cart as Mother of Ken attempts to pull it toward the fitting room.
The fitting rooms:
We frequently make fun of ugly clothes we find--these are a particularly awful pair of satin formal cargo shorts:
About halfway through the shopping trip, here's what the trunk looked like:
Then we moved on to other places, such as TJ Maxx and Dillard's:
As we headed home, here's what the trunk looked like:
I spent the next day at Mother and Father of Ken's house relaxing and playing with the dogs. These are Mother and Father of Ken's two Boxers, Boomer (the fawn Boxer) and Piper (the brindle Boxer)--they are McKenna's uncle and aunt.
Boomer impersonating a frog:
Boomer on the couch--they are allowed to be up on the couch as long as at least one paw is still on the floor.
Piper, waking up from her post-dinner nap long enough for me to take a picture:
Pipey again:
The next day, I went to visit Grambi and Papaw (you'll remember them from this entry). We had a lovely, if too short, visit before I had to get back to Parsons, meet Father of Ken, pack my things in the truck, and head north to have dinner with Mother and Brother of Ken. On the way, I took some photos of the towns between where Grambi and Papaw live (Baxter Springs) and the town that I am from (Parsons). Don't worry--I took these when I was going very slowly or stopped.
Gentle readers, I give you Melrose, Kansas:
This is pretty much all there is to see of Melrose.
The next town is Chetopa, Kansas--here's the river outside of town:
The town of Chetopa itself--you have to be very careful while driving through Chetopa because the cops have little to do but look for unsuspecting "foreigners" who might dare to drive one or two miles per hour over the speed limit. Once I was driving through on my way home after my first visit to Dallas before I lived there and I got pulled over for going 50 mph in a 45 mph zone right before you get to the 65 mph sign. I was driving Mother of Ken's car and Mother of Ken did not have the most current insurance card in the glove compartment, but the cop let me go because one of Mother of Ken's priest books fell out with the insurance card.
"Mmmmmm....cow," as McKenna's Aunt Leah would say.
The town of Chetopa itself--you have to be very careful while driving through Chetopa because the cops have little to do but look for unsuspecting "foreigners" who might dare to drive one or two miles per hour over the speed limit. Once I was driving through on my way home after my first visit to Dallas before I lived there and I got pulled over for going 50 mph in a 45 mph zone right before you get to the 65 mph sign. I was driving Mother of Ken's car and Mother of Ken did not have the most current insurance card in the glove compartment, but the cop let me go because one of Mother of Ken's priest books fell out with the insurance card.
I also had to drive through Oswego, but forgot to take pictures there. Anyway, on my way back into Parsons, I was stopped because of road construction and took this picture of tonight's dinner:
"Mmmmmm....cow," as McKenna's Aunt Leah would say.
Next up: highlights of my weekend in Maryland.
4 comments:
#1: Those satin cargo shorts are a sure sign of Satan's work.
#2: I totally thought something about that cow picture being of walking steaks, and then I scrolled down and read what you wrote. You know me so well.
First of all, that Kohl's looks really suspiciously like the Kohl's in Havover, PA. Granted, I'm sure many Kohl's look like that Kohl's, but it sure made me stop and think, wow, that looks like the Hanover Kohl's. Secondly, I wonder how much my $2.97 capris from Gap were in % off. I wish there was a search engine for the original retail price, so I could see if I beat your 97% off. Impressive. Why have we not shopped together? Between yours and my sale sniffing, we would most certainly rock the racks.
"Rock the racks?" You're a dork.
Maybe we could go shopping if you ever stopped running and would come over when I am at Leah's ;-)
Also, those cows looked very tasty--I thought of you as soon as I looked over and saw them next to the truck.
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