Kansas: The Middle Thing

So, there I was. In Kansas.

Maybe when you get old your internal heater shuts down. That's why so many old people move to hot places. Violet's grandparents like it hot. They really like it hot. The first time we visited with Mia when she was just a couple months old, she got a heat rash from the temperatures they keep in that house. The crazy thing is they have a digital thermometer above the fridge. It has a huge display to show you just how effing hot it is in the house at all hours of the day. However, they always have it tuned to the outside temperature, and they heat their house appropriately. So, while I'm sitting on the couch -- just sitting and sweating -- and grandma goes to turn up the heat on the thermostat because as she can clearly see it's only 62 degrees inside. I have to ask politely, "Could you please not turn the heat up any higher? It's baking in here!"

"Oh, it's only 62 degrees. You must be cold!"

Serenity now.

I get up and push the INSIDE TEMP button on the fancy digital thermometer. "Grandma, it's 82 degrees inside. You're looking at the outside temperature again." By the third day there, I think they caught on because I no longer had to change shirts every 6 hours due to itchy sweat stains. Bitching about stuff pays off again.

One thing we do a hellava lot of in Kansas is eat great food. The first day we were there (Sunday), grandma had cooked up an entire turkey dinner with the works. That morning, when I got out of bed I saw grandma in the kitchen watching the turkey cook up. "We're having that for dinner", she said. Awesome! So, planning for a huge feast in the evening, I decided to handle things the same way I would handle Thanksgiving. Eat a moderate breakfast and then starve the rest of the day until around 5pm turkey time. Little did I remember that "dinner" is code word for "lunch" in the Midwest. "Supper" in the Midwest, means "dinner" out west. Got that? So a mere 3 hours after breakfast, we were setting the table to eat a feast. I'm ashamed to say I could only gorge down one plate full. If I would have known, I would have starved myself the previous evening. At any rate, the food was incredible and included stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, etc, etc.

Mia got to go bowling for the first time ever. We were looking for something to do in Dodge City, Kansas, and the new mini golf place is closed Monday thru Thursday. So, our options were to walk around Wal-Mart or go bowling. I hate Wal-Mart. Anyway, we hooked up with Violet's old school pal, Sheila, and her 4 kids for a bowling night extravaganza. Mia scored a 31. Very respectable for a 2 year old, rolling her own fluorescent-orange six-pound ball.

We bought a board game to play because sitting and watching TV with the grandparents was getting old and I thought we could use some spirited competition/discussion/interaction. Seriously, the amount of Court TV being watched was unbearable. Vi and I picked up Scattergories, which seemed to go over fairly well after spending only one day of convincing others in the family to play.

This brought on a pretty good laugh while driving around Dodge City.

Oh, and I was finally introduced to the wonder that is 3.2% beer. I picked up a sixer of the finest beer the grocery store had to offer (Killians Red), and discovered my spoiled northwest beer pit is immune to such subtle hints of alcohol in a beverage. Damn shame. What is the point in making 3.2% beer? So you won't get hammered at home? That's right -- we're going to make you go out to a bar to get hammered instead. Get your swerve on before heading home. That's jack-assery at it's finest.