Meet the Parents II: A Visit to Tennessee

I'm swamped with work but wanted to share a few quick highlights from the weekend. Here they are in no particular order:

I got to see the most realistic fake deviled eggs ever. They were part of a faux feast set up at Belle Meade mansion, a historic plantation that we visited outside of Nashville. It was a fun tour led in tag team by a group of guides in period costume, at least one of which was detoxing from a narcotic of some sort.

I played the Wii for the first time. The first game was bowling against Eric and his sister Lisa. I got the hang of it quickly and demolished them both with a score of 153. Sadly, because I was playing as a guest instead of Mii, the score will not be saved to ensure that my glory live on and on. The beginner's luck wore off pretty quickly, though: I got wasted by Eric in tennis so badly it made everyone a little sad. I was waving that little remote around like I was shooing away a swarm of flies, and my Mii on the screen appeared to have an intense seizure every time the ball came to her side of the net. That didn't last long.

I got to hang out with dogs. Eric's sister Lisa and her husband Matt have two really great dogs: Rudy and Holly. Rudy is a miniature schnauzer who trots around in a cute, compact sort of way and tries to avoid getting abused by Holly, the airedale, who is in a spectacular frenzy about 85% of the time. She was fun to watch at the dog park, less fun jumping on us in bed in the morning (she is not a small dog). An un-highlight: Rudy puked on me. Boo Rudy. OK, you're forgiven.

And of course, spending time with Eric's family was great fun. We ate Mexican food, we walked around downtown Nashville trying on cowboy hats and boots, we sat on the back patio and watched the birds, we looked at baby pictures and a video that Eric shot and edited of the family's trip to Alaska when he was 17*, and we celebrated Eric's mother's birthday with her and her delicious cake.


*This may have been the highlight of the highlights. It includes Eric's parents squatting by the side of a river panning for gold, walking around on a glacier in crampons, a thoughtful camera pan of every bathroom used on the trip, and Eric dramatically recounting (with a funny accented drawl not at all like how he talks today) a near-death kayak mishap with his brother on a special kayaking trip the two of them took together.