Sultry Iowa Days

So, I've been home for almost two weeks, and time has been passing in alternating waves of snail and lightning speed. My family welcomed me with open arms and a list of shit they needed done. Apparently, my mother doesn't trust herself to change the lightbulb in the hallway, and so has been living with it dark for god knows how many weeks/months. *sigh* So, I've been used and abused by her and my grandma for doing odds & ends jobs...but nothing too back-breaking. The weather, although gorgeous when I first arrived, has segued into cool mornings and sultry days. With my mother's stubborn approach to running the air conditioning, I'm having flashbacks to my time in aircon-free, sweaty France. Ugh.

Another thing that's been driving me to the brink of alcoholism is my mother's incessant need to know where I'm going and what I'm doing and who was that who just called me and was that my email notification that just went off and on and on and on. I'm finding it extremely difficult to abandon my usual freedom to the demands of my snoopy mother. Which is not to say that I think I should abandon it; on the contrary, I'm fighting it tooth and nail. And while I hate being subject to the Mom Inquisition, I also hate feeling like I'm ready to snap at any moment. I just want my peace and quiet and autonomy back.

On a more positive note, I've really enjoyed hanging out with my friends. Derek had a "Welcome Back Shannon" dinner, for which he made his famous bulgogi (Korean BBQ). I've really missed hanging out with all of those guys, so it was a real treat to be able to interact with them personally, as opposed to just on Facebook.

My weekend looks to be fairly interesting, with a cookout tomorrow (making my new favorite tomato dish, Tomato Crumble [recipe from a cookbook I got at a chateau near Saintes]) and an outing to a special dance club in the evening. Sunday will be a movie with my dad, grandma's spaghetti dinner, and then another movie with dad.

Fun times ahead. Also, need to update on here about my last days/nights in France. Coming soon. :-)