Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Dinner Talk

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    I guess people will put up with a lot to get some time away from terrible decor.

    Comment


      Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
      WOM do your kids come on these trips? Don't they go crazy in the back seat?
      They're on the trips to OBX, of course. But not the concert-related jaunts to Nashville, Detroit and Buffalo. But since they were toddlers, we've regularly driven to Detroit to fly to Florida for school break. So that's a good 4-5 hours. And weekends at the cottage involve 2 hours on Friday night and 2 again on Sunday night.

      I guess what I'm saying is that they're just used to it. They get a bit bored, but they listen to their music and watch movies on the iPad or whatever. Or sleep. Not much reading, though. My wife is probably the most productive, either knitting / crocheting or writing up lesson plans on her laptop. Or just gawking around and chatting with me. I point that last bit out because we learned, quite by accident, that L's mother doesn't talk her father when they drive and that this bothers him.

      Comment


        You do all the driving? You don't even share it with the wife?

        Comment


          Um....I have issues around that. I'm really just not comfortable with anyone else driving. Especially her. She always offers, but I'm seriously just the world's most nervous passenger. Couple of years back, I was driving with a migraine and couldn't take it any more. I finally relented and we switched places. Within six or seven minutes, we were spinning 180 degrees into oncoming traffic and the car was almost written off. So...no...cheers.....

          Comment


            Originally posted by hobbes View Post
            Jesus. Even now the idea of driving more that 4 hours horrifies me. I have to psyche myself up for the 90 minute journey to my Mum's. The idea of doing it every day makes me suicidal. And that's me driving. Sitting as a passenger for days on end would result in a mass killing event.
            I’ve found that I always get impatient about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through a trip, no matter how far the total journey is.

            So when I did that 17 hour trip to Minneapolis, I wasn’t really sick of it until I got past Chicago about 10 hours in. Whereas if I have to drive to Harrisburg 90 miles away, I’m sick of it after about an hour.

            The mind is strange that way.
            Last edited by Hot Pepsi; 23-04-2019, 01:32.

            Comment


              I grew up in a voluble and emotionally demonstrative family so dinner/tea-times were the place to chat, argue, laugh, debate and, while I have always somewhat replicated it in my own family, the three of us don't quite have the same levels of boisterousness as a family of 5. Now that it is mostly the two of us, the difference is even more pronounced even though it is hardly what you call quiet. Therefore, I love big dinners especially celebrations such as Christmas with family and friends. Indeed, we had a wonderful couple of meals with Bored Jr over the weekend which, due to his absence, were really good open conversations. Interestingly, Mrs Bored insisted beforehand that a couple of important and somewhat emotional issues were brought up with him over a meal rather than, say, in the car which demonstrates the position we hold for mealtime conversations

              MY wife went on holiday with a couple of friends of ours and they all stayed with one of their's dad and his second wife. Apparently, they ate with no talk at all but music in the background. None of them are particularly quiet people - indeed, our friends are very sociable - but, apparently led by the dad, they don't talk over meals. My wife hated it and found it very uncomfortable and she didn't even grow up in a particularly gregarious family. We are both going over in August and I admitted that I wasn't looking forward to the mealtimes after her experiences and she said that it would be fine as I was there and I talk a a lot. This, however, does put an element of pressure on me. Not that it won't stop me talking through the meals as I can't stand the vacuum of uncomfortable silence (or, even, comfortable ones, truth be told). I once turned my eyelids inside out to liven a particularly excruciatingly painful dinner party.

              One point is that the same friends always ask each other what music to play during meals when we go over there. I can never understand this although I have a feeling that my wife has requested music on occasion at social meals at our house. it's not, however, a habit that has caught on. As I have always had tinnitus and am getting defer, I find it hard to follow conversation with music that is too loud and obtrusive playing and, to be blunt, can't see the point in anything getting in the way of the conversation - particularly mine. Having said that, I have an idea that we would regularly have the tv on while eating when I was growing up which made the meals even louder.

              Comment


                Originally posted by hobbes View Post
                Jesus. Even now the idea of driving more that 4 hours horrifies me. I have to psyche myself up for the 90 minute journey to my Mum's. The idea of doing it every day makes me suicidal. And that's me driving. Sitting as a passenger for days on end would result in a mass killing event.
                I had a discussion on this theme last week. A friend from Ohio was explaining how when they were in the UK with a family they went on a three hour drive and then had a fifteen minute break every hour to "stretch your legs". She wondered how anyone ever got anywhere.

                That said, WOM's treks are rather insane. In his defense, he at least doesn't do these 26 hour drives in a F-150 at about 14mpg, which is also not an unusual idea for many on this continent.

                Comment


                  At 14mpg you'd be stopping every hour to fill up anyway, presumably.

                  Comment


                    Originally posted by caja-dglh View Post
                    That said, WOM's treks are rather insane. In his defense, he at least doesn't do these 26 hour drives in a F-150 at about 14mpg, which is also not an unusual idea for many on this continent.
                    Well, that's very generous of you. But, to be frank, the Ridgeline's fuel economy ain't much better.

                    Comment

                    Working...
                    X