I invite you to to peer into the beautifully crazy life of this elder lesbian daughter of a staunch yet loving and accepting Roman Catholic family.  

Our journey begins with chronological Facebook status updates from two 2013 trips I took with my parents.  I'm one of the lucky ones who actually enjoys time with the two humans who made me and raised me and my three siblings.  We disagree on politics and religious doctrine (and fashion), but we have a genuinely overflowing amount of love for one another. My dad, as you will soon discover, is likely the reason our family uses sarcasm as a form of affection. His and my mom's unwavering faith is also the reason I trust everything to be in perfect and divine order now and always, despite the oft unsettling evidence otherwise. 

My hope is that you will be entertained by what unfolds in the words below, and that you will see the world as a more wonderful (albeit hilarious) place after reading about my parents, my family, and my relationship with them.  I've always believed that anyone I care about deserves to experience my family. You can start here.

The first part of this blog is filled with 39 of my quippy Facebook status updates that should offer you context for the longer form narratives that follow. Though you may be tempted to skip ahead and read the stories, you won’t want to miss things like, well, how my dad ironed my back after I lost the battle with a hotel hide-a-bed. Yep. It’s all in there. And, it’s all true.

Enjoy!

Facebook, July 2013
ADVENTURES WITH MY PARENTS

July 24, 2013 (SeaTac Airport) 

SEA > SFO > ABQ
I’m with my parents. That should put you on notice to return to this thread. I’m going to need the company.

July 25, 2013 (Albuquerque, NM) 

I'm vacationing with the Griswolds. Air conditioning is the bane of my father's existence, so Mom and I forfeit sleeping under covers. In the Land of Enchantment, breakfast is every meal. No one got the memo mentioning that the "when its yellow, let it mellow" rule does not apply away from home in hotels. I expect Cousin Eddy to walk up any moment.

July 25, 2013 (near La Ciengaga, NM)

The adventure continues! Mom won't let me plug my iPhone into the rental car stereo because she's "afraid the car will blow up." I'll need Botox after this trip since my brow remains furrowed in utter awe and confusion.

July 25, 2013

— at Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi
(on my knees in a pew, glaring at my father’s back)

“Dear God, is my dad saying a novena to you, or what?!  Will you please inspire him to get up off his knees and take his wife and daughter to eat. We are about to pass out. Amen.”

July 25, 2013

— at San Miguel Mission

There's definitely a theme to our tour stops today. We are now in the oldest Catholic Church in America (San Miguel Chapel). Thank God we got something to eat.

July 26, 2013 (Santa Fe, NM) 

My dad is an all-around gentleman, opening doors, pulling out chairs and offering an outstretched hand at curbsides. But he has a habit of parking atop mud puddles. As a result, from the knees down I look like Huckleberry Finn, despite the fact that I am in high heels and couture white cropped pants (that now resemble a Jackson Pollock painting).

July 26, 2013 (near Tesuque, NM) 

Well, Cousin Ed hath arrived. If I hear, "Keep your eyes peeled for a Dollar Store" one more time... Who in the world actively seeks out a Dollar Store?! My dad, that's who. He needs a new pair of sunglasses so he can leave them in the hotel– again. Was I adopted?

July 26, 2013 

Me and the Griswolds are in Chimayo. Mom and Dad brought with them empty minced garlic jars to collect the healing holy dirt (minced garlic jars that they apparently thought they only needed to rinse and not fully wash). As everyone in the tiny dirt room walks out thinking they have b.o. because of our unwashed holy vessels, Dad just laughs with joy as he clutches his miracle jar filled with sand. I think he's really 5 years old.

July 26, 2013

We just passed a dead rattlesnake in the road. Dad is pouting because Mom won't let him go back and cut the head off for a souvenir. Seriously, I had to have been adopted.

July 26, 2013 (near Walsenburg, CO)

 Dad's fashion commentary:

"Hey, Née Née, are we taking this horse feed bag with us?"
(That would be my purse).

My distressed feet, from all of the incessant walking, need a lower heeled shoe, so I urge them to stop into a cute dress shop.

Dad: "What about these, Née? They have the exact design of your blouse."

Mom laughs as I look toward Dad and furrow my brow– again. The sandals he has chosen are brown and pink, my blouse is black and purple- and I have no clue what "design" he is referring to.

Note: this footwear suggestion is coming from a man wearing a t-shirt donning an eagle, the American flag and some statement about freedom.

Dad, Mom and me outside the gates of Chimayo, just after stinking up the place with our unwashed minced garlic jars used to haul away sacred dirt. Little do I know how much that miracle dirt will come in handy in less than 36 hours.

July 26, 2013 

I'm in the backseat while the Griswolds peruse an AAA TripTik (yes, they still print those things) to navigate the Rockies. I feel like a 14-year old as I slide my earbuds into my ears, place one of my bare feet between their seats onto the console and ask that they give me some alone time. I tell them both to please tap my foot to indicate that they would like to talk to me. For the first time this trip, my parents are the ones rolling their eyes.

Me listening to music in my earphones to drown out Mom and Dad reading aloud a novel that will take them 8 long hours to complete.

July 26, 2013 (Colorado Springs, CO) 

Lost and Unfound thus far this trip (meaning left in the hotel room, never to be seen again):

* Two pairs of reading glasses (both Mom's)

* One pair of sunglasses (Dad's)

* A shoe–yes, one single shoe (Mom's)

* A library book (Mom's–who is now the proud owner of said library book)

* A special pillow from home (Dad's)

July 27, 2013 (Colorado Springs, CO) 

Holy hell. Dad has a pill he takes daily. Why in the name of God that pill has to be ingested at 2:30AM is beyond me. More baffling is the fact that it sounds like he's banging pots and pans rather than swallowing a pill the size of a fingertip.  
Am I part of a Candid Camera mini-series?!!

July 27, 2013 (Colorado Springs, CO) 

Hide-a-bed Hell: Part I
Focus On the Family must be having a convention in Colorado Springs; there are few to no hotel rooms available. As a result, I get to sleep on a hide-a-bed in my parent’s hotel room. I wake with my back so whacked out I can't move. The ensuing hilarity definitely takes the cake for this entire trip. 

July 27, 2013 (Colorado Springs, CO) 

Hide-a-bed Hell: Part II
Dad offers to massage my back to help the fact that I'm paralyzed from sleeping with a metal bar jabbing my lumbar region for 8 hours. The massage begins delightfully (my dad is a great masseure).  About 4 minutes in, Dad says, "Joycie, turn that iron on for me, will ya?" I continue enjoying my back rub.

July 27, 2013 (Colorado Springs, CO) 

Hide-a-Bed Hell: Part III
Wait. Dad doesn't iron. I settle in to the fact that my skin is now surface to a gritty alchemy of creamy botanical Native American Indian pain potion mixed with garlic-fragranced Chimayo miracle dirt, when suddenly my body tenses terror-stricken.

"Dad, don't you even think about it!"

Dad nonchalantly acknowledges my emphatic refusal to be ironed by in fact ironing a thin hand towel over the small of my back. I can't move, or I would punched him.

July 27, 2013(Colorado Springs, CO) 

Hide-a-bed Hell: Part IV
I finally stand from my prone position. Amazed that the quirky combination of natural remedies (one of which was having my back ironed) actually offered relief, I no longer have the urge to kick Dad in the scrotum.

Feeling good, I suggest we hike Seven Falls, to which Mom responds, "No honey. What if your back goes out on the trail? We won't have the iron with us.”

Raised brow and a glance over at my father holding a hot iron, I utter, "Dear Heavenly Father, take me now. Or at least help me locate my birth parents."

July 27, 2013 (Colorado Springs, CO) 

Hide-a-bed Hell: Part V
As if that isn't enough, Dad comes up with the only way to surely have avoided this entire wrenched back fiasco. Shaking his head in pity at how pathetically slow and painfully I am pulling up my jeans, he says "My poor little girl. Née Née, you should've just slept in the bed with us."

Mom screeches in laughter, and I wish to God someone could instantly capture and create a bust to memorialize the look on my face; a look that will hopefully forever haunt my father.

July 27, 2013 

My back is grateful for Advil (even though it's a rare day in hell that I take medicine) and I am thankful for good music in my ears, my remedy for the boredom I experience while driving across Kansas. Mom and Dad remain engrossed in their book since I refuse to say another rosary with them. I didn’t say this many rosaries in my entire 12-year Catholic school career!

July 27, 2013

In August, my parents will have been married 49 years. I love my mom even more today for not only putting up with my father, but for laughing uncontrollably at everything he says. She literally still thinks he's the funniest person alive after all these years, and I think that's pretty precious. I would have killed him by now.

July 27, 2013 (Independence, MO) 

We've arrived home to the house I grew up in. The house, in fact, that on the day Mom and Dad moved in and while playing craps on the hardwood floor, Mom's water broke with me. The journey began here, and ends here (metaphorically, as to not confuse the Universe).

Mom and Dad are now discussing, in bizarre detail, how extremely perplexed they are that the protagonist in the book (the book that Mom has read aloud to Dad for 8 —yes, 8— straight hours) has gone and named her white cat Cleo.

Holy Mother of God, what's it going to be like when they are actually old enough to suffer from dementia?!