I am to visit my parents over the next couple of days, which are my "weekend" days this week. My mother in particular has been asking when I'm coming up for several weeks now, so I decided to just say, "the hell with it" and make the drive, which is about seven hours, one way. I know I don't visit them often enough, but it's a lot harder to break away from my obligations than it was a couple years ago. My job was through my college's housing department, so when I had no school, I had no work (and since I lived in the dorms for two years out of the three and half, I usually had no home either). That meant I had a solid week four times a year I could veg at my parent's place. Now though, with no break anywhere in sight, its more complicated, what with work and all.

Plus, its a lot more traumatic. While I'm a fairly typical example of my generation's version of the Yuppie, my hometown has not quite made it out of the twentieth century as far as communication technology goes. So no email. My parents don't have broadband, because dial-up is the only game in town. My cell phone doesn't work, because apparently "All of California coverage" really means "All of California people see in movies." As my cell is the only number I have, and the only number people I'm not related to have for me, I'm getting no phone calls. Due to the number of trees surrounding my parent's house, radio reception is sketchy at best, and limited to two country stations. People have asked how I acquired my taste for country music. It was that or go crazy, and I didn't have too much of a margin to begin with.

On the other hand, the water tastes a lot better, and I won't have to cook and do dishes, so its not a total loss. And they have satellite television, with 24 hour music video channels, so I can look forward to that as well. Most importantly, I'll be able to reclaim my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which my mother has had since July and told me I needed to reclaim in person if I wanted it back.

She was apparently serious about that threat to find ways to force me to show up.