So the gravel-filled pothole is still there on our street, developing ruts. Not much progress there.
And in other news...

I seem to be hitting a posting wall. At the same time, I am also hitting a wall in terms of my tolerance for my husband's beefs with my side of our family.

Okay, so I've kvetched and kvelled about his family members. I've rolled my eyes and chided him for sending me and the little guy off to California to visit his parents and telling me to have a nice vacation (yeah, right...). And he's done his share about my family. We're honest with each other and honest about both groups of relatives behaving strangely, badly, or in an annoying manner. We concur on a lot of what we see from our respective sets of parental units, from siblings, and from various aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc.

But this is the first time it seems to be really getting to me.

First it was Dan going on about why we can't just go to my parents' in Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. It would be nice, and I think my grandparents would go for it just so they wouldn't have to be responsible for getting all the food prepared. The hitch in all of this? My aunt doesn't want to go too far from her place in Manhattan. So we have to be on Long Island for the holiday. Okay, fine, whatever.

So we'll be out of town for almost a week. And because we once lived in Queens, we will be visiting with people we know from our former synagogue and from our former neighborhood. I for one will try to sandwich in some time with a former New Orleans resident and good friend who now lives in Astoria, and with my best mom friend who lives farther out on Long Island. Dan's and my most recent conflict involved where he wanted to eat the night we arrive in Nu Yawk. I misunderstood what he was getting at and called my grandparents and my parents, made arrangements for us to drop our stuff off at my grandparents' house once we get into town, and then head back to Queens Blvd to the restaurant of Dan's choice. I hung up the phone, and the spat ensued.

I had apparently forgotten about rush hour - we are going to arrive at La Guardia airport in the early afternoon. I got annoyed at Dan. How in the heck am I supposed to read his mind? After a short tussle over who was in the right and who in the wrong, I called my grandmother back and arranged to meet her and the rest of the family at the restaurant. Something in me had thought she'd be annoyed by this change of events, and I was a tad on edge. My fears were unfounded - she said it was fine. Dan gave her the address and life is good.

I still feel uneasy, though, because I think that our familiarity with NYC might well get in the way of some of the stuff the family wants to do - and knowing Dan, the weight will be on the side of seeing our friends. I also think I'm starting to get a tad more set in my ways and in the jobs I now have down here. I've already had to reschedule one workday because we will be gone for longer than the average Thanksgiving break. I'm fortunate that I was able to do that, but what will happen if and when I get closer to a full time job?

Yeah, most of these conflicts are probably all in my head. I know my husband does his best to schedule these kinds of trips so that the least amount of damage is done for both of us job-wise, and I think he's trying to get some of this in while the little guy is still young and school isn't an "or else" requirement in terms of perfect attendance (although I think it did shock Dan a little when our son's progress report came out and it said he'd been absent for eight days, the length of time he'd gone to California with me to see grandparents and then returned with a case of conjunctivitis that left him out of school for a few more days). But I still worry about striking the right balance. Family and friends. Relaxation and action.

I thought I'd left this kind of worry behind when we began good-sized family trips with the little guy in tow when he was five months old. I guess, in the end, the worry simply ebbs and flows.

Things will probably be just fine when we get there. Maybe. I hope so.

Hey, at least there will be a lot of food!