Julianna Margulies can Suck It

Remember how I told you I'm living with my parents right now? Well, I am. Me, Rob, Leila, the cat and the dog. Boy oh boy.

If you've been reading me for any length of time, you already know that we go on vacation with my parents every year, on their dime, for at least a week, sometimes two. My parents are in their 70s, my mom is super active, my dad is super sedate, and they are both really kind, generous people who are single-handedly (or double fistedly) keeping cocktail hour alive. We have a lot of fun together, and they're not the sort of parents I feel I have to hang out with, or that I roll my eyes at, and I don't screen their calls.

They're still my parents, however, and naturally this relationship comes with its own set of button-pushing, needling, know-me-too-well, God-my-parents-are-getting-old idiosyncrasies. I don't often write about my parents because they are very private people. In fact, I don't think they know this bog even exists, and if they found out, they would be completely flummoxed and outraged by the way I over share. Now that I've been living with them for over a week, though, I have to get some stuff off my chest:

My mom likes to watch Piers Morgan every night. She doesn't actually watch every night, she has a life, but when she's home and its nine o'clock, she watches Piers Morgan. The other night, Julianna Margulies was on there, and my mom has never heard of her, but we had to watch her for an hour and see what she had to say, which wasn't much. Then my dad comes along and says, "You know what's a good show? Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader. Now that's a good show." and he continues, "See, they have these grown people answer questions, and they have these fifth graders..." you get the idea.

Now let me tell you a story about dish towels: My mother finds great virtue in using things until they either break, disintegrate, or run screaming from her home, begging for mercy. Knowing this, I brought a few of my dish towels along when I moved in. She was confused by this: why would I feel the need to bring dish towels, her's a perfectly fine. She held one of them up to show me, and I said, "Mom, I can see the back yard through that towel." And she's all, "No, you can't!" and I'm all, "Yuh huh! there's the bird feeder!" Then I said, "I bet you've had that dish towel longer than you've had me." and she goes, "yes, but I didn't use it for a few years because it was too good." Its a dish towel, people, a 45 year-old dish towel. I know what someone is getting for Christmas...

I miss my TV. I miss my DVR. I miss HGTV and Food Network. I miss my dish rack. I miss having dinner and not doing the dishes until morning. I miss my front loading washing machine. I miss preheating the oven to the actual degrees indicated on the box instead of cutting that in half to save energy. I miss turning lights on when its dark. I miss my mail, which I forwarded to my parents' address more than a week ago, and all I've gotten is a week-old Newsweek. I miss knowing where my food is (my mom likes to rearrange and consolidate, resulting in two boxes of completely different cereal being merged into one.) I miss getting take out; whenever I've wanted take out, I've been told I have to eat a fried egg instead. 11 weeks to go...

But, here's what's awesome about living with my parents: In addition to the aforementioned cocktails, my dad will bust open a bottle of cold champagne and we'll drink it together, WHENEVER I WANT. They have good butter and cheese and liverwurst in the house at all times. I can buy these things myself, of course, but I never do because it just tastes better at my parents' house, and now I can eat it ALL THE TIME. My mom is really funny. I am living with two people who love my kid and will take care of her when I need to go do errands. My dad loves my dog. I'm sleeping like the dead in my old room. They have a Costco card. They have not gotten on my case even one time for being a slob (though I've been trying really hard not to be a slob, and you know how hard that is for me.) They are doing us the biggest favor in the world by letting us stay with them while our house gets torn apart, and I am truly grateful. We could not do this project without their hospitality, so I will watch Piers Morgan with my mom, and drink my dad's booze, and eat fried eggs all they want.

I owe them. Big.