Tis I, The Gout!
Dec. 29th, 2025 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marginalianaProject 'Family Christmas Literally Anywhere That Isn't Texas' was pretty successful. My mother was thrilled that I made the arrangements and all she had to do was turn up - which was not something she had expressed a desire for in advance so I had been stressing about it but then once we were there she told me several times how much she appreciated it. Feelings wise it was pretty par in terms of how interacting with my mother is complicated, but then eased by the fact that we had places to go and things to do rather than just sitting around in her house.
The highlight was probably learning about how Benjamin Franklin wrote a story where the personification of his gout told him to drink less and get more exercise. We also went on a Christmas lights trolley tour with a live musician who made us all come up with things we wanted for the 12 days of Christmas ("ten burlesque dancers" was a good one, and "six thousand dollars"). Extremely silly and I loved it.
The part of the trip that was most me was the bit where, while waiting to go to the airport to go home, we spent several hours without screens just rambling about things and that included a long discussion of 'If you were designing your perfect restaurant, what would it look like?' Which is the kind of thing I think about all the time (my wife has to listen to ramblings of this sort on the regular which thankfully she thinks is charming) but my mother thinks about never. I think that may have given her an insight into my brain that she hasn't had in a long time.
The highlight was probably learning about how Benjamin Franklin wrote a story where the personification of his gout told him to drink less and get more exercise. We also went on a Christmas lights trolley tour with a live musician who made us all come up with things we wanted for the 12 days of Christmas ("ten burlesque dancers" was a good one, and "six thousand dollars"). Extremely silly and I loved it.
The part of the trip that was most me was the bit where, while waiting to go to the airport to go home, we spent several hours without screens just rambling about things and that included a long discussion of 'If you were designing your perfect restaurant, what would it look like?' Which is the kind of thing I think about all the time (my wife has to listen to ramblings of this sort on the regular which thankfully she thinks is charming) but my mother thinks about never. I think that may have given her an insight into my brain that she hasn't had in a long time.
Unless I missed one or two.
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