Cheesehead in Paradise

My MIL and her husband are in town. My relationship with my MIL is complicated. It always has been, but so has my relationship with my own mother.

I haven't ever really thought of my MIL as old before. She was young when she had spouse--younger even than I was when I had my kids. She went on to have four kids and raise them pretty much by herself while her husband (my FIL) finished college, then worked very hard as an engineer, then began to develop hobbies: golf, tennis, and women.

By the time my spouse and his older sister had gone off to college, her life changed pretty dramatically when she and my FIL divorced, and she had to find work (after raising kids for 20 years) and live in an apartment (after living on the fashionable north side of Indianapolis in a comfortable home). But she still had a son in junior high, and one finishing high school, so she soldiered on.

That's about the time I entered the picture. I think the intensity of my relationship with her son, and the schmoopie way we carried on all the live-long day was hard for her when her relationship had fallen apart. Plus, I was getting to finish college, which she had not due to her very early marriage and the birth soon after of her first child.

So, even though it was complicated, I admired her for what she had been able to accomplish under very trying circumstances. I wouldn't say we were friends, exactly, but we have always gotten along. Mostly. I have never thought of her as old. She and her second husband became "cruisers" about twelve years ago, which means they sold their house and cars and put the few things they really wanted to keep in storage and lived aboard a catamaran for about two years. I mean they lived on the boat! People who do that can do anything, right?

They have stopped here on a leg of a journey that will take them eventually from their home on the "ocean-side" of Florida to the glaciers of Alaska. That's clear across the country, yo! They are traveling by car, train, plane, and ship. It's an adventure that they have planned for a year, and they even quit smoking in preparation. (MIL's husband has not been on an airplane since the FAA banned smoking on them.)

My spouse asked for an itinerary that includes their cell phone number. We tried to call them last night to see when they would be in town today so we could arrange our schedules around it. The cell phone just gave him a recording that said that the voice mail box had never been set up. When we finally saw them today, Spouse asked his mom if her phone was new. "No, it's the same phone we've had all along."

He explained the problem leaving a message, and asked why they hadn't set up voice mail. My MIL told exclaimed that her phone didn't come with voice mail. When Spouse told her that it's built into the phone she was surprised--she thought it would be a separate device, like an answering machine. So spouse, Man Child and I explained that voice mail did not cost extra, nor did the caller ID function on the phone, nor did programming the numbers of her kids and friends. She thought all those were Extra, as in Extra Cost, so she ignored them. After about fifteen minutes of persuasion, she handed her phone to Man Child, and he set it up for her. It took him all of 45 seconds.

Generational differences, you see.

Later, when ManChild was getting up to leave, he informed us that he was meeting Fairly Worthless Girl, and they were driving up to Snow Belt Peninsula Resort Area, where her parents were staying at a condo. "ManChild, that's a four-hour drive! How long will you be staying?" "Oh, just overnight."

I gasped at the wastefulness of such a lavish petroleum burn for just one night--one short night at that. "Mom, when did you get to be such an old lady?" he asked me.

Generational differences, you see.