Weekend at the 'rents

My mom was just involved in a car wreck. Some dude in a one-ton truck (with no insurance) slammed into the rear of her car while she was waiting to pull into the driveway. She was stationary, and he was going 60 mph. Luckily she was okay, but the car was totaled. So I drove my parents to pick up their insurance check, and then took them car shopping. As is typical for my parents, they bought the exact same car -- different color, year newer, but otherwise exactly the same. My parents are in their early seventies, so anytime death takes a whiff of them, I get sorta creeped out and insecure about just about everything. Mostly I fixate on the fact that I haven't made much of an effort in my life to get to know the 'rents. Hell, I'm only a few years removed from the rebellion stage.

But I realize time is of the essence, so I took the cue upon hearing of my mom's accident to skip out on the final day-and-a-half of the work week and head home to spend time with them. I actually had a good time, which was, yes, a surprise. Between my mom's horrible hearing (I said BETWEEN MY MOM'S HORRIBLE HEARING) and my dad's complete ignorance about the internet (I spent the better part of an hour on the phone with AOL, and then explained to my dad for the fifth time in the past six months how to use his Yahoo e-mail account), one would think that I may have been a bit, uh, frustrated. But I'm actually growing to enjoy my parents' quirks, which makes spending time with them more enticing. In an odd way, I feel like I have a leveling affect on them, as if I'm providing some perspective for them that's sadly lacking from their day-to-day life. Or maybe that's just what I'm telling myself after cooking four-cheese tortellini with vodka sauce for them, and having my dad ask in classic Wendy's commerical form, "Where's the meat?"

To change subjects, the radio show has turned into a bit of a drag. I'm just not enjoying it all that much. A lot of peeps want to hear the show but can't because they don't live in town. (Okay, that's actually more like five people, but they're important people!) And since there's no longer a Web stream, and there's no easy way to record the show in studio, I have no way of archiving the show for them. On top of that, there's plenty to dislike about the station's membership and its chosen model of decision-making. So I've been thinking about just recording at home. I've got the means to do hour-long shows that I could burn to disc and save as mp3s, and in doing so I could do shows on my own schedule, have an archive of each (a big deal for me), and be able to share with my friends who aren't within earshot. The idea is growing on me. Just think! With a few spare days, I could teach my dad how to download each radio show to his desktop, and soon he and mom could be rockin' to the oldies!