Dirty Dancing

[jayfurr]

Next week we'll be up on a mountaintop near Blacksburg attending a Fun-Filled Family Gathering, also known as my parents' second 50th Wedding Anniversary celebration of 2008. The first one was held on the actual date, back in March, but unfortunately, the Most Favored Daughter (see if you can figure out from that link which one shares my genes) and her husband and their kids were out of the country, in Germany, thanks to a Fulbright scholarship my brother-in-law won. (Props to him, by the way.)

So we have to do another gathering and this time for some odd reason my parents want us to all gather at the Mountain Lake Hotel and hang out for a week, doing something. Can't be enjoying the lake, because the damn lake dried up. Completely empty if I understand correctly. But at least we can hang out with the perplexingly large legion of fans of the movie "Dirty Dancing" who apparently congregate there.

I'm sure we'll have the time of our lives.

Comments

[sandyinstep.livejournal.com]

You should at least be able to get some nice hiking in when you peel yourself away from the family for a while.

[jayfurr.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Provided I can keep the family from taking unwanted trips to Abilene.

Both sides of Carole's family tend to take a LOT of unwanted trips to Abilene when they're all together but I'm usually able to stand up and say "OKAY. This is what we're going to do." (And later on get thanked for cutting through all the confusion.)

But when I try that around my family the strong-willed individuals among us tend to feel I'm being unnecessarily bossy and we wind up going to Abilene anyway.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abilene_paradox)

[sandyinstep.livejournal.com]

Trips to Abilene do not happen in my family. We're not exactly a group think bunch. We are in fact more likely to do nothing and seethe about it.

[jayfurr.livejournal.com]

Yep, that can bite too.

I'm hoping that we're able to do some actual relaxing this coming week. Between my sister's kids occasionally being real attention sinks and Carole getting fussy and difficult when her blood sugar or caffeine or Ritalin level gets low, I doubt there's going to be as much peace and quiet as I'm fantasizing about.