[Music] welcome to ear biscuits the podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time i’m rhett and i’m link this week at the round table of dimmed lighting i’m gonna bring you into the world of my trip back to north carolina three weeks as i said is a long time to be anywhere but hey when you haven’t seen your family since thanksgiving of 2019 there’s lots of stored up energy and and love to give so you got to go back home and you got to make sure you know there’s all these conversations are we gonna we gotta have enough time and there’s no holiday there’s no so it’s not like we well there is a july 4th but there’s no like gift-giving holiday you can get guests on just christmas tradition type stuff the gift of freedom the logistics of holidays tends to over impose on just a simple enjoying life with relatives that was the thesis going into our trip i think in in practice uh there was some business to take care of um logistically and emotionally actually back home some of which i anticipated some of which i didn’t and um some of which i’m still processing and of course i save all of my deepest introspection for this venue rhett right now if this is your first episode of beer biscuits welcome ah we never do this i’m honored that this is this is the first one you’re dipping your toe into and uh when we do things in life like go on trips we then do episodes about them right two life-long friends talk about life for a long time last week i talked about my trip to north carolina which was i loved it action-packed fun there was a fire there was white water rafting zip lining goth a lot of people have been getting on me lately about the way they take off people are like well i don’t golf i grew up in bowie’s creek you say it golf yeah we don’t say the l i guess i say it without it it’s just it’s it’s not it’s a it’s a dialect it’s the way that we talk golf yeah i could say golf golf golf golf golf but it’s unnecessary but i say golf but i do pronounce the h in white white uh so yeah so today’s episode is link sharing his trip now so if any i saw you speaking of your trip this serendipity would have it that we were on the same flight back home so what why didn’t you say anything it was i mean with the masks and all it’s hard to recognize you i remember having a conversation with you at the airport so hopefully you do remember yeah so after our trip yeah we can we convened and then just happened to be on the same flight back really i mean so close to each other that we were able to like put shepherd and lando and seats next to each other you know um and it was interesting because i could just see it on your face yeah what well first of all i think we were all ready i mean regardless of how a trip has gone at this point in my life i’m always ready to go back home i started thinking about the routine and i started thinking about the and i’m not even a routine oriented sort of predictability oriented guy but yet i still miss a lot of the conveniences and things that i’ve kind of mapped out and i’m not even on that end of the spectrum i am and you had had one week on blowing the end of the spectrum you had one additional week on me and also based on what you have hinted at without telling me you it seems that you had there was uh there was heavier things going on i have said that haven’t i um but i mean it and coming back home especially especially after you know being isolated in your home and you know i i like my home and i like the people in my home and we found a way to make it work and optimize things and i like to optimize things but even beyond that when you got these two precious dogs that you have is christy is like is jasper going to remember me she she would always say that i mean yes he’s going to remember you you have a lot of faith in your dogs of course they remembered us and saka the cat even seemed a little happy to have us back but the dogs were ecstatic you know uh we walk in the door and they’re like making fools in them happy peeing on the floor it’s like i mean i would love to get so happy that i just pee on the floor i mean pull my pants down and then pee on the floor just not just pee in my pant i wouldn’t pee on my pants that seems a little too that’s what the dogs do i’m like they just can’t help themselves they love us so much do they both do this they both pee in excitement happy pee yeah it’s it’s definitely a dog thing i don’t well a wiener dog definitely yeah i mean yeah because barbara’s barber gets embarrassingly happy but she’s never happy peed she does not pee she’s got that under control and she doesn’t have her like the sounds that she makes are embarrassing and there’s like crying it’s like it’s very intense i will say it was makes you feel good significantly more intense for jessie when she got back from her trip to north carolina than it was for me even though barbara loves me to death but she didn’t give me she didn’t roll out the red carpet in the same way that she did for jessie and so i’m kind of holding that against her oh yeah but she did not i mean she will urinate on the carpet but it’s not but not because she’s happy because somebody didn’t let her out when she rang the bell so there’s i’ll start with some bookends to this trip um because i botched the bookends okay um first thing was we well i decided strategically every other time we’ve gone home we’ve just moved from house to house and visiting with people and celebrating usually either thanksgiving or christmas and you’re moving around a lot a lot of couch surfing and it’s um it’s absolutely exhausting and there’s never any personal space so especially with with three weeks in this in this plan i was like okay we’re gonna try something new um we’re gonna stay at an airbnb also christy’s sister had just had a baby and you know there was like the covid protocols of it all and like maybe being isolated and stuff like that and and taking into account other people’s preferences in the family and well basically just having a newborn in their house meant that we could not we couldn’t stay at their house anyways like a genius plan can i just say that running an airbnb i’ve never done this but i feel like this is a smart move i mean we did the airbnb in the mountains but yeah it was different i feel like more people if you can afford it yeah it can be you should do this but i gotta say i think that many families would be insulted by you deciding to stay somewhere else and i think that people just need to like just relax and just don’t i’m not saying this that would happen but this happened in my family i’m not saying this but i think that there’s for most people there’s a reservation to make the choice to do what you did to stay at an airbnb especially when you got to visit multiple people oh gosh even if you’re gonna go and they have room and it’s just one family i think that having your own space i think it only contributes to the time together being sweeter than having to just be up in each other’s space i think the quarantine experience also informed this that okay we’re all in the same house so much more that we learn to respect people’s boundaries and and be grateful that we have a house where everybody can have their own private space and re to retreat into so having a renewed sense of that importance that also informed the trip now that so that was not botched that was that was brilliant planning so on the but on the back bookend one of the things that you should do if you’re booking an airbnb is book it for the entire trip like don’t book it for three weeks minus one day so we we jenna’s like putting her head down it’s not jenna’s fault you didn’t do this i did this link did it and get into my own hands i don’t know what happened but we’re flying out numbers dates are numbered flying out on the 23rd but we but i put the checkout on the 22nd did not know this never occurred to me until um noon on the 22nd you know the oldest kids were you know they’re still asleep they sleep till noon right this is one of those days where we weren’t getting up and visiting family and all of a sudden there’s like this aggressive knock on the door and it’s the it’s the cleaning lady coming to clean the airbnb and um i opened the door and she’s like i’m i’m here to clean and i’m like well we’re booked through tomorrow yeah and she’s like you definitely took the wrong posture in this situation for some reason i was so confident which was just stupid i should have immediately known that this was my fault right yeah but it took me a second and she was like yeah and then i pulled up the thing and i was like oh crap you’re right we’ll be out of here as soon as we can so then i’m like waking up the older kids but at least you were not in cancun and you know i made the same mistake right honeymoon right i was in my bathing suit with the sculpture in hand when this happened to me but i had to stay at the a seedy hotel in the you got a sculpture in your hand yeah i just done the sculpture class and i was like holding a sculpture and finding out that i was you know to be on a plane oh yeah thank god we didn’t it thank god it wasn’t the other so what did you do where did you sing the street well we i was like we can’t extend another day because she’s coming to clean for the next people to come in and they’re already asking then they can they check in early and of course that ain’t happening so we had stuff packed up enough because we we had taken a mini trip okay there were a couple of mini trips in there where we had to pack everything up and visit relatives a little further away which i’ll tell you about um so fortunately in record time in about 20 minutes wow from understanding that we did not belong there anymore we were out of there and then i i found another airbnb closer to the airport for the final night but it did make our last day pretty our last our next last day pretty hectic because in the last day was just getting up and getting ready to go to the airport and everything that was the back end but right when we get there to the air b i’m airbnb i’m feeling good i’m like this is a good decision we have a home base uh it’s gonna revolutionize this entire experience are you saying things like that as a the dads tend to do that they tend to say what you just said to me you say to the family this is good you have a home base and no one cares yeah yeah you’re you’re doing it for no one yes thank you yeah so don’t do them so next time just keep it inside well you know we have to learn to we have to learn to inhibit that dad instinct because it’s only going to get worse as we get older they don’t i’ve just noticed every time i start trying to yeah talk about how good the plan that i made is everybody starts walking away slowly yeah they don’t miss a beat when i’m they don’t it’s as if i’m just muttering to myself uh but emoting a little too much yeah that’s a good plan we got it we got a home base who’s dad talking to himself and i’m like okay well you know in order to fully realize this experience i’m gonna go to my room with my suitcase and i’m gonna unpack all of my stuff like elevate your suitcase on one of those things did they have one of those no i just put it on the bed i also elevated christy’s because hers was heavy and i don’t want any early vacation suitcase lifting injuries yeah you know i’m like i’m thinking of all the potential pitfalls and i’m putting everything away making this space my own you know this is the launch pad using drawers i don’t use drawers because if you use drawers you might you’ll get you leave stuff in drawers unless you unless a drawer check is part of the routine but i but i put out my my my my toiletries in the right place and i put my uh my suitcase in organize it in a way that it becomes a drawer a series of drawers almost as i’m doing that and and putting things in my suitcase in like an open-faced suitcase sandwich situation i realize that i’ve overlooked a key aspect of my uh apparel i have not packed any t-shirts i didn’t i don’t know you’re gonna say like because my dad didn’t bring underwear on the on the trip to the mountains uh and so he had to like go to walmart and get more underwear what is it easy to correct what’s the one category if you were to miss it entirely would have the greatest impact for me i mean i know you’re a tall guy pants probably but during the during the summer season shorts is not i mean shorts don’t it’s not as big of a deal i had a couple of shirts is about as bad as it gets i brought a couple of button-up shirts i knew we weren’t going to go out to dinner that wasn’t part of any of our plans really it was more of like visiting people and t-shirts the only t-shirt i brought was the one that i was sleeping in and the one i was going to sleep in when the one i was sleeping in was being washed what’s your packing system how did you forget t-shirts i just i saved the most important thing to last because in my mind the t-shirts are the most important part and i need to like make a big stack of those well i know you got and i use them to pad other things you got a lot of assistance for things and i don’t have a lot of systems but can i just give you my i think the reason i don’t forget clothing on a trip now i’ll forget other things toiletries medicine whatever but i don’t forget uh apparel yeah because i have the toe to head check you sit yeah yeah so i’m just like do you have all the shoes that you want and the flip-flops yeah everything that can go on your feet you don’t have to walk through it i understand you and then you get a good idea but you get to the top and give me a body scan but you get to the top body scan and t-shirts are part of the body this is the way that i do it i do it by i have my drawers organized by you know i got a socket underwear drawer and then i’ve got um i’ve got a pants drawer and then i’ve got a workout shorts drawer and then i’ve got some miscellaneous drawer and then i’ve got my shirts over here and my button ups hanging over here so if i go to every segment and take out the appropriate amount of things from each place then i’ve i’ve done it so what happened i don’t know i think but returning to go to my t-shirt pile i just i just overlooked it entirely i don’t know what happened man you must somebody who distracted you in the midst of it i mean i ended up getting a text i ended up finding a shop and just buying a bunch of shirts in one place i bought like seven shirts like cool t-shirts or just like an urban outfitters i can still i can still get a t-shirt from urban outfitters but not like you didn’t do like i’m gonna do the fruit of the loom eight pack no okay there’s increasing number of things that i can’t buy in urban outfitters but t-shirts there’s i can still find some stuff that that i don’t feel like i’m posing i’m not buying a bucket hat and some some big old britches like my son is um so it it started and it ended in in in shaky ways but there was definitely some some highlights to this thing i’ll stick with the airbnb um lando came up to me on the first night and he says you know dad together is a beautiful place to be and i felt i just it just warned my heart i’m like you thought he had like come up with so sweet but i could tell by the look on his face that he was doing some sort of bit and then i look over his shoulder and there is a picture here that took a picture of it no it’s one of those airbnb there’s a decor decision that’s being made there’s a picture that says it it’s it’s just a brown frame with a green mat and then a white uh page that just has lettering on it there’s it’s just words there’s no other decoration and the words say together is a beautiful place to be that is that is the piece of decoration i understand the sentiment this would have upset me because i’m i’m a i’m very anti words on the wall in the house well very i don’t like messages i don’t like messages hung on the wall lando thought i hate him was hilarious i think it’s ridiculous and it but it can go to extremes it turns out the only type of decoration in this airbnb motivational text based pictures that lando had covered them all up he had committed them all to memory and he just and then he just start spouting them off to me because he found it very funny too i think it’s it’s just i i’m not going to say it’s a southerner it’s a southern thing but it’s a southern thing and a midwestern thing we were you know we’re driving through all these like new neighborhoods that they’re building that we’re talking about last week and i passed one neighborhood and it had a they had a front porch it was one of those new cookie cutter houses like oh they’re you know we’re we’re up to date everything’s everything’s brand new on their porch they had a vertical sign that was probably four and a half feet tall and a foot and a half wide and in vertical letters on their front porch the sign said not welcome i’ve seen those two it said porch i swear to you they had a sign on their porch that just said porch and it was that big propped up next to their door in an intentionally decorative way why have art when you can have font so right so lando i i mean i guess when you’re um when you’re this was you know this is a full-time airbnb it was well designed except for the worst and renovated but this was a choice that that that i question these signs were everywhere and let’s see if you can finish some of these sentences okay okay here’s another one in in the hallway life isn’t about finding yourself life is about blanking yourself touching yeah now that might change your tune right it’s like wow this this house really has something to say being life isn’t about finding yourself life is about creating yourself give me a break creating i like being yourself but that’s it’s not assertive enough for an airbnb wall right next to it because this is a group of three like a group of three don’t don’t look at it oh gosh what were these people thinking life is better when you’re blanking fishing it’s not a it’s not a tackle box themed house loving i’m shabby chic i think is maybe the word but ing life is better when you’re eating when you’re loving that’s good when you’re eating yeah that’s your mantra touching yourself and eating at the same saying time lot about you i’ve done it uh no this one is life is better when you’re laughing okay all right i mean we got to agree with that right yeah but the business but do you but life is better when you’re eating i don’t know what it is i’m not i’m not a natural rebel but i just don’t to me the reason i don’t like words on things is i don’t like people thinking things for me like telling me like it feels like i’m being prescribed a bunch of things the way i’m supposed to think about life and be i’m supposed to be reminded that i’m special and i i don’t i don’t want that if it’s it’s i feel insulted by it i guess that’s my problem with it if you have a problem with that then you wouldn’t like the wi-fi network name which was uh jesuslink one and i don’t know if they made it that because they knew you were they were it was like a for me i think it was just like link in like the internet was the armani does that mean the only way to connect with jesus there is through the wi-fi he only responds to wi-fi in this house prayer doesn’t work i did connect i’m okay all right i’m not done right even with this trio in the hallway in a world where you can be anything be yourself that’s a little lazy happy but it is going to be that sappy joyful in a world where you can be anything be kind that makes me want to be unkind see that’s my problem you tell me to be kind i’m like who came up with that give me their address it’s just i’m going to aggressively knock on their door it is heavy-handed i i didn’t it’s it’s lazy decor and it’s and especially to do it everywhere it’s tacky that’s the big thing is i believe it come on now i believe it is anybody ever in the world like would you go into the louvre museum and they’re like this is the section where people have written motivational words onto things no because nobody gives a damn about that because it’s lazy and it doesn’t take any it just doesn’t it’s not expressive it’s prescriptive if i want advice i’ll ask somebody come on now i i just feel preached too and yeah even without the jesus link one thing even i feel preached to everywhere i turn in this house i didn’t write this in the review by the way maybe i should identimize it well a lot of people like it i’m not done they’re very popular here’s another one collect beautiful memories close moments and and then they had um a coffee coffee set and guess what the coffee mugs which is pretty nice hefty pottery this is a different category for me every single one of them had words written on them like this is this is different to me espresso this is okay this is this is a mug mugs can have things written on them because mugs are not but pieces of art first and foremost well it’s this one’s surrounded by decor they’re things that you use but it’s an exposed shelf and they were all facing you so when you walk in the kitchen you read them as if they were signage so it is decor because it’s constantly out i guess it would be expresso yourself what about stay positive no i hate that stay positive yeah i don’t i don’t i don’t need a message like that if there’s a pun i like espresso yourself that’s pretty good what about keep it simple okay stop giving me advice on the damn mugs i know last but not least i like you a latte that’s good okay i mean i don’t know coffee related right yeah i there were three or four more but i got too exhausted to keep taking photos but i i really i mean when your son like ambushes you with a comedic bit about it it really it was a it was a milestone moment in the in the vacation i was really proud of lando to go into comedy mode and he like he found humor in it and he memorized all of them and then he he would just speak in the inspirational language of the decor hey and listen if i’m wrong about this i mean obviously these are popular they sell them everywhere cracker barrel especially uh if this is if i’m missing something if i need more don’t say i we we’re we are a united front if we need more words we’re against it in our lives on the wall tweet at us okay hashtag your biscuit just tell us why we’re wrong now if it’s the thing above the toilet about if you sprinkle when you tinkle no that’s okay please be neat and wipe the seat that’s okay that’s different to me go to mythical.com and get this travel mug i don’t care if you’re not traveling you can travel from wherever you are to wherever you need to get this and then you can bring it back to where you were with it and it won’t spill and then it’ll open up and you can drink out of it it says things on it but again it’s drinkware yeah so that’s okay that’s a good mythical morning there’s also you know one at mythical.com we should sell we should sell in the mythical store a wall art font thing that says that says don’t think don’t put text-based art on your walls it’s a psa it’s ironic it’s ex i like this idea but and it’s that whole decor of like it looks exactly the same but when you get close you realize that there’s somebody who’s making fun of the whole thing and it’s the only one in the entire house put your boys in your hands mythical.com a couple other highlights um from my trip i i’m still sticking with the airbnb i i haven’t even gotten to my family yet lincoln was was sick with a cold at the beginning your family gave it to him well and my family got it from another family and he really didn’t work and we all took um covet tests when we got there and and we were all negative we know for a fact he didn’t have it um but we we kept him at home because he felt so bad and we didn’t want to give anybody that we were seeing a cold um we gave him nyquil i think that had something to do with this but he he started talking about all the crazy dreams he was having when he’d wake up at like noon and see us um but let’s see he would stay up he would stay up so late that’s why he was sleeping late and just hanging out with his friends but one time he he texted his friends and he said i’ve been in a car accident and they put me on a stretcher and they threw me through the window and i’m in this i’m in i’m in bed now and i don’t know what’s going on and he actually texted this to me he said he sleep texted his friends because he that was the dream was he was in a car accident and then they put him on a stretcher and they threw him through the second story window that’s beside his bed and he landed in the bed and he was so scared and disoriented that he texted his friends for help and so they’re like receiving the message at like what would be like he’s got your jeans uh and then they quickly realize as he’s describing how they emt’s threw him through a window that like dude you’re you’re still asleep they’re like they knew that this was a possibility i didn’t i mean no they didn’t but it was the way that he was texting it was coherent but the message i would have so outlander i would have assumed it was a joke before i assumed that he was sleep texting because i didn’t know that sleep texting i talked to him and they were freaking out at first because the first text is i’ve been in a car accident that’s big and why would he text you know the next day christy and i are downstairs and um it’s like 11 a.m and christy says lincoln just texted me and said that there’s something on his light and i told him i’m not going up there because i’m watching she’s watching some show that she was really into and uh virgin river christy and her virgin river wow it’s like i thought it was the second season it’s still a virgin apparently things move slowly well it’s a really drawing that one is like a lazy river i guess uh she’s like so i’m not going up there um and she texts him this and he says you have to there’s something online you have to come up here and get it like a bug so i grab a broom and a paper towel and i go upstairs and when i get upstairs i mean it’s broad daylight it’s 11 a.m i look at the lincoln standing there beside the bed he’s facing the other direction a little bit but i didn’t really notice that because i’m looking at the light and i’m like and i have the stuff to come to the rescue and i’m like lincoln there is nothing on the light and i look at lincoln and he’s he’s not awake he had a he had a text conversation with christy about a hallucination on that light this is this is i said lincoln there’s nothing on your light son go back to bed or actually get up it’s it’s 11 00 a.m he went back to sleep for an hour he was still i’m not a i’m not a sleep expert but it feels like it feels like this is a step or two beyond sleep walking and the sleep texting there’s a there’s a level of focus i looked into it a little bit that happened that makes me is it just because he was sick i think those were factors but um this is something he’s gonna have to like manage is what i’m getting at i i mean especially in a foreign environment where if you you’re a little disoriented and so you don’t know he wasn’t used to where he was and he was sick and he was on had some nyquil or whatever i don’t i don’t think it’s cause for alarm like my aunt my aunt tc we were telling my family about this and my dad was like well you know when she was growing up she would sleepwalk and she’d sleep right out the front door onto the street so it can’t get um that’s what i’m getting at yeah i gotta keep an eye on him which we do so everybody take his phone and everything’s gonna be fine tie him down sleep texting but yeah i mean people are known to like there is such a thing as sleep sexing like you could have sex in your sleep i’ve done that it’s happened according to the internet a couple other highlights of my trip um we saw my brand new niece sylvie sweet little baby like it’s been so long since i held a newborn that i was i was a tad bit nervous right and then there was a sign that was like always remember when you’re holding a baby remember the gravy well chris okay this is going to be okay i told christy that i was like you know i’m i actually feel a little nervous holding holding the baby because and this is just between me and her and then so when we walk in the door and we’re all holding seeing the baby for the first time she’s like link said he was nervous holding the baby so he’s gonna have to sit down before we give her to him listen i this is a good call i was not yeah i didn’t fight it uh holding a baby is exhausting uh i guess when you’re that anxious about it so i do have footage of being entirely conked out on the couch next to a newborn baby which is so cute you know i want to give that gift to all the all the youtube watchers of your biscuits um sylvie and her older proud brother nehemiah were hanging out with them uh definitely a highlight seeing my dad you might we had to drive and spend we spent two nights at my dad’s house down in north myrtle beach where he is permanently living that beach life uh we had a blast down there the kids couldn’t get over how warm the ocean was you’re gonna love this ocean it’s so warm you’re not gonna remember how how hot it is and one highlight was the fact that everybody was willing to get in the ocean and stay in it you know out here on this pacific ocean only the youngest or wet suited get in there christy wouldn’t dream of getting in that ocean and like just hanging out with the family so like actually all five of us were like in the ocean the waves were pretty mild just enjoying ourselves and my dad was out there it was like it’s one of those rare times when you’re doing something as a family that everybody’s really into it is your dad a body surfer uh he didn’t body surf but he has yeah he seems like a body surfer he could body surf so he was just a waiter i think he was waiting we were just kind of waiting you know just kind of chilling out the waves were a little too tame for that i don’t know if you remember the last time i talked about seeing my dad at the beach talking about his golf cart but if you don’t remember it it’s this like gratuitously wrapped in sunset it’s actually the color scheme of of the travel mug in a lot of ways like it’s uh like if jimmy buffett vomited his feelings on all over uh a golf cart and then somebody wrote beach life in this weird font no that’s a good type good text but on a golf cart that’s acceptable so you don’t remember this the a in beach was such a weird font that it look if you squint your eyes just a little not a lot it looks like an l so on at least three different places on his super like it looks like a four by four golf cart like mulch life yes it looks like it says belch life oh belch like belch belch life yeah wow which is even better it’s kind of cool yeah so belch life is still going strong you get on belch life you put your chairs there and then you drive just a couple of short blocks that might be better than beach life to the beach um so that was definitely a highlight going to christy’s parents house driving down to kinston we hadn’t we hadn’t the last few times we’ve been down there they would always come up and visit us so we hadn’t been back home so that to the point that at 11 years old lando had never been fishing with with grandpa so this was a first and lando caught his first fish a bass in a lake uh yeah in a pond we went to a couple of ponds lincoln caught a nice bass lincoln congratulations you already caught a fish man yeah man but i think it was when i was had my hand on the rod i was showing you how to use it definitely not true i caught i caught some fish too going back we threw them back but lando i was concerned about lando’s potential concern with the fight you know because i you know you were talking about how uh adeline your niece is so into fishing she could probably teach lando a thing or two like i didn’t know if he would want to actually catch a fish but he’s reeling this fish in and he’s like scared and thrilled and but then he refuses to touch it refuses to but i did get some photos of him like standing sheepishly behind the fish that grand grandpa was holding but catch a fish with granddad you know yeah like our like our game yeah i’m not gonna play it right now but in real life so that was another highlight did he was he upset with because you know so when we we fished at that trout pond and it was you could not it was against the rules to not keep the fish because that’s the business they charge you you buy the pound this is a farm of trout that you walk away with okay and uh this is a private pond and they give you a bucket to put the fish that you catch in so it’s i mean listen growing up all kinds of fishing all kinds of pulling hooks out of fish all kinds of gutting fish like my relationship to you know killing and gutting and eating a fish was something that from a very early age i was okay with but i kind of removed from it at this point and it was like yeah there was like a bucket of the trout that we had caught and it’s just like i mean these trout are not doing well in this bucket and then they’re going to be doing really bad when they get fellate and we take them home and eat them um so yeah our kids don’t have i mean shepherd kind of like is kind of in his biology to just immediately kind of adjust to it and be like this is awesome we’re catching fish i was surprised at how well lando did but he was concerned about the hook and i mean i i mean i feel it because when i caught a couple of fish you know there was no discussion but i was like okay grandpa you’re going to be the one touching the fish i’ll be honest i did not even touch it it gets it honest i mean he had grandpa had gloves on which helps you i guess grip the fish and protect yourself from hooking yourself and i don’t know what i’m doing you know we were retelling that old story of like when when i hooked lincoln in the back of the head when he was like six years old with grandpa you remember that story yeah so i mean that that that scared him going to visit nana uh was great you remember when our studio was just a few blocks from nana and papa’s house and we she would always want us to come there for lunch and she would always make that meatloaf oh yeah she insisted i was like we’ll just bring food we don’t want you to you know last time i saw nana she didn’t have a walker you know now she’s got a she’s got a walker and mentally she’s sharp and so it’s always nice to like converse with her and it’s so it’s not yeah she’s getting older and she’s got a walker but she’s tenacious and she’s sharp so it was um and the fact that i didn’t want her to have to cook but she insisted on it and then she breaks out this like this that thin fried cornbread and i i almost forgot that existed you know it’s been so long since i’ve had some of that good fry bread and like my kids didn’t know what it was so that’s another highlight is just it you know you get a sense now that every time you go home when it’s once or twice a year with the oldest relatives with and nana is now the only remaining living uh how does she know grandma oh god that’d be almost 90. 89 i think yeah she you know it’s like okay she’s giving us the gift of making a signature meal and actually she made and then we came in all the time and she insisted on making beef roast another signature meal and there’s just sense that like okay i don’t know how many more of these i have in me if you’re only able to come once or twice a year let’s you know let’s make this special and it definitely was you know and it’s so there’s this exercise of going home seeing how the everybody’s aged a little bit more or some in some cases a lot more and just cherishing what we’ve got you know knowing that nothing lasts forever so that was that was a really sweet time and and i knew that it was kind of setting up for when i visited my mom and when i visited my aunt vicki that that that’s when it was gonna there’s there was potential for things to get more heavy and for us to enter that headspace and of like okay all good things must end at some point um of course you know it was it was last july like in in 2020 when my nanny passed away and because of because of the circumstances of covet and because of christy’s personal health and things we were dealing with at home yeah all of the factors came together but if even if you probably just isolated kovid that would have been enough to to prevent all of us or and even me alone going back for the funeral so um i knew that when i this would be the first time of going back into nanny’s house with since she’s passed away and i knew that not much had changed in the house because vicki hasn’t been living well i yeah i’ll get to explaining that in a minute but i knew that okay this was potentially a really emotional moment for me because i didn’t know how much how much would come up that i hadn’t experienced because you know there’s a level of it just you know experiencing the loss of of nanny just it didn’t i didn’t know how how much i processed it how real it had felt because we were so isolated and separated and none of the traditional grief practices i was able to i was able to do like i had to i kind of had to invent my own and i think we talked about some of that uh last year either in the the year end or as it was happening i honestly can’t remember i know we talked about it at year end but um the mitigating factor or the other factor is yeah what you’re saying it’s like now my aunt vicki um lived with nanny and took care of her for like her entire end of life she was able to stay at home when they brought in they brought in hospice at home she didn’t have to go and stay at the hospital and die at the hospital she was able to pass away at home and a lot of that was due to the fact that like her her her youngest sister aunt vicki who had lived with her for over 50 years was there to take care of her it’s kind of amazing that like okay there’s nine siblings nanny is the oldest and then aunt vicki is the youngest she’s seven years older than my mom so when aunt vicki was 21 she moved in with nanny and papa and my mom who was uh i guess and it so it was uh that was there was an interesting dynamic there that i never knew anything about that’s like okay they’re you know now my aunt’s living in the house like all i ever knew growing up from my youngest age was visiting nanny and papa in the house that is still the house that i that i went back to like my entire life that was nanny and her house that was they were they were associated with each other nanny didn’t have a license like if she drove anywhere she rode with papa until he passed away in 1998 um and then after that it was just her and vicki and vicki would drive her everywhere they they worked at the same shirt factory in lillington for like um over like 30 years like inspecting shirts and putting on buttons and then coming home and doing it again the next day when nanny retired vicky that’s when vicki became the lunch lady at tri one of the lunch ladies at triton high school uh so which you know i’ve got which knowing vicky is like a the perfect move you know i’ve got a a long and and deep and loving relationship with aunt vicki like i was the closest thing she had to having never you know gotten married or had a partner or dated much that i know of it’s like but she had a she had a grandson in me you know so we had it we had a special relationship and as an only child um i was you know now it’s this the dynamic of me making sure that aunt vicki is taken care of and then the state comes along and says and they ca they’ve been there’s been rumblings of this for years but they say we’re going to you your house is next to the highway we’re expanding the highway and i saw like my mom sent me the plans months ago they’re putting the highway basically through the house well because the house was already very close to the existing road yeah yeah so nanny passed away then we hear that like these planes are definitely moving forward vicki is in mourning and taking this the worst because she is the absolute closest to nanny for all all of these years and now like the place that harbors all of their shared experiences is being taken away from her so it’s like an additional level of sadness and so when i went home and and we’d encourage vicki to move in with another sister of hers that’s nearby aunt lynette who we also love and see pretty often but her her husband had passed away a few years ago so now she’s kind of got an empty house and and room for vicki to go so it’s like okay this seems to be lining up you’re going to have to move out of the house so you can go ahead and start living with aunt lynette but the way that she did it was she just moved like a minimal amount of stuff and then vicky would just like come a lot of times she’d just come back to the house during the day to nanny’s house and just kind of be there you know i think just like this prolonged morning that you know letting go of the house is would is a painful exercise associated with maybe you know letting go and coming to grips with nanny being gone right i knew all of this but that further complicated what i was stepping into but i think that i had this image in my mind that i was going to go into the house and and have some time where i could just kind of process and maybe shed a tear and just have a moment where i was going down memory lane and just you know having a having a uh an exercise in mourning right unfortunately it it that opportunity never really presented itself because there was a lot of work to be done on that front i think that um i walked into the house and i asked i asked nanny and i mean not nanny i asked vicky and lynette to meet me a little bit later but when you tell old people to meet you somewhere they always show up like an hour or two early yeah so they were already there and and and because i had set aside the entire afternoon and i was like mom’s going to come over too and i’m going to see what we’re up against here because we have to start organizing and moving this stuff out vicki you need to move everything out that you need to live with lynette and then whatever’s what and then whatever you want the special whatever mom wants it special we got to start getting this stuff out of the house so like i kind of knew that i would have to step in and provide the leadership to work through this logistically because as i’ll talk about next my mom’s got so much on her plate vicky’s going through so much and unders that i needed to i needed to make this happen is there like a date for when they’re gonna like level the house not not yet i mean they’re appraising it and they’re supposed to give us an offer and then there’ll be some sort of negotiation how much they’re going to purchase the house and the land for and so we’re going to have to cross that bridge soon but i wanted vicki to be in a comfortable space at lynette’s house with all of her stuff and not prolong this limbo so i’m like we’re gonna put labels on things if you want stuff we’ll put a label on it and you don’t have to move anything yet but then we’ll know what’s labeled as and with who’s wants it is going to get it and then whatever’s left i’ll i’ll have to figure out how to get rid of that stuff with like an estate sale or something afterward i’ve never done any of this stuff but it’s but it’s i’ve quickly realized i walk into the house and like okay we’re in go mode i got to try to figure this out i got a limited amount of time and i’m tr i’m trying to hurt these cats that are my relatives a couple of other relatives show up by the way because i think once you start going through people labeling stuff once you start labeling p everybody’s got a label people gonna come out of the woodwork to see what they want and you know what it was totally fine it was you know i think with a lot of families this is where it gets to be a nightmare situation yeah i had helped nanny with her will i i actually think that getting the will in place was one of the things that was like keeping her holding on for as long as she did she almost she basically articulated that when i was talking to her you know there was like six months leading up to her her passing that we were getting all that in place the last time she left the house was to go and get the will straightened out so because of that work that we had all done it made it it wasn’t it wasn’t painful right and it wasn’t there wasn’t conflict thank god but still it was uh just the task was so difficult that you kind of had to keep your emotions that they just wasn’t room for that at that point um and then i realized even after labeling stuff i’m like okay i’ve got to co i’ve got to find an entire other day to come back and actually box stuff up just for aunt vicki to move out like i literally have to move her out so then i had christy and i came back and you know it actually turned out to be a special time when we were like boxing up all of her stuff and then getting movers to come and actually move all of it and going through her stuff something that could have been very painful i think because it was kind of like i was i was able to step in and love her in that way that it uh it made it it it made it a positive experience you know i felt like i was actually able to help i mean we you know there were times when she would break down crying and i would be there for and like we could encourage her but when we were also getting this job done like was a very tangible way to say we’re we have to move on and we’re we’re in this together and i’m here for you i’m like she didn’t feel like she was being forced forced out well i mean and if she was we can blame it on the state yeah which is it was actually kind of nice because i didn’t i didn’t want her to live alone um so that was that was it wasn’t it wasn’t as difficult as i thought and i because it just couldn’t be you know uh it had to be what it was i i so maybe there’s still some emotional work for me to do and i do think we had our our moments and mom and i had our moments and um especially when you’re going through and like i found some keepsakes like when i was a little kid some stuff that i toys that i would play with like a few of those things and like my granddad’s um there was more stuff i found of him that i didn’t find when he passed away like uh his all of his deputy sheriff badges well like he i mean he had one that’s a belt buckle i got a sheriff again so you wrote a sheriff buckle badge and we’re looking through old photos and like i’m taking some pictures of digital pictures of old photos because i’m not they’re not my albums but i want like a version of it but yeah i mean i definitely find myself thinking wow look at all these really old photos of all these people i will never know and i you know i don’t know anything about their lives i know that i’m distantly related to these people but it definitely there’s like a depressing angle to that it’s like i i can’t all of these people i can’t stand looking at old pictures because it yeah it even all pictures of my family almost always end up with this like yeah depressed feeling that that is in the past and i can’t access it and it’s just like life is moving too fast i felt some of that and there was this you know there’s this one photo of me in nanny and vicki’s kitchen and um i was i was probably one years old and i was just i was dressed like winnie the pooh meaning i was only wearing a shirt no okay like i was in a costume i i’m looking in the bottom cabinet that’s like two feet off the ground and it’s at eye level and my ass cheeks are hanging out and now i get i went in i was going in that kitchen and we were boxing stuff up and nothing had changed like for all of those years from the moment they built and decorated their kitchen with the red countertops and like strawberry wallpaper like nothing ever changed except how big my ass cheeks got right and you typically wear pants when opening fridges now but there was a sweetness to looking at photos of of mom and like i’ve i found the uh like the the bulletin of the brochure from when my mom and dad got married like it had their wedding vows in it and like the the guest book i was like looking through the guest book of like because mom didn’t keep that but nanny kept it in the bottom of a uh a chest and it was so it was surreal it’s like okay my i don’t see anything of my parents being together just maybe a couple of pictures and here i am looking at like the newspaper article their announce engagement announcement and their wedding day and looking at the wedding uh order of service and everybody who showed up and but i don’t know it was it was the pictures of people that i didn’t know that somehow in that moment felt more poignant to me like these people are long gone and i never i never knew anything about them and it’s like what you start to think things like what difference does it make you know it’s like there’s a temptation to start thinking that type of stuff you know so there was a little bit of that but i’d and it so they’re it’s a little depressing to say okay and some of this stuff is just going in the trash you know some of the stuff that you kept for 50 years these things on the wall like uh aunt vicki kept her shot glasses she has all she never she doesn’t drink at all but she collects shot glasses from everywhere that she visited we kept all of those to move into the net’s house but it’s you know death is a part of life and also we’re at an age where we’re we’re assuming the responsibilities of of helping our aging relatives move into their next phase of life and death i mean and i i think that that mindset definitely continued when i went to moms um you know you you know more about mom’s situation but i’m i i think it’s a it’s a good time to i’m ready to share more about the context of what mom’s been dealing with just because um we’re we’re processing it we’re wrapping our minds around it um at the i think our year end our 2020 year-end uh podcast i alluded to the challenges that my mom was facing and how i wanted to be of support to her and um how that was a a big a big factor of course right you know in 2019 in earlier 2019 mom and louis visited and then that’s when the whole story of uh louis like going getting hospitalized and almost dying uh because of bleeding in his lower gi tract and uh he was on the verge of death multiple times and we were we were there i mean i i i outlined that that surreal experience of him being on the brink of death for the entire visit and and wondering is he going to make it and and is he even going to be able to go back home but he got to a point in his recovery where he was able to fly home and i think where we left the story at the time was he gets back home and he’s he’s doing good enough like he’s grabbed his leaf blower and he’s blowing off his is his car carport and he’s back in his own space and he’s good good good you know it was the this the sad thing that happened was it within within the next week or so he suffered that’s when he suffered a series of strokes and then was hospitalized and um if you if you fast forward to july that’s when we went home to film us going back to bowie’s creek to do that like our our homecoming miniseries where we like associated with bleak creek where we talked about like the inspiration for the for the novel and all that and i remember uh every day we would shoot all day we went swimming in the river we went to the we went to all over bowie’s creek um and then i remember every night the crew would hang out and i would leave as soon as we were done filming and i would drive to the hospital to visit mom who was carrying who was on at lewis’s bedside because even those few months later after having this the strokes he was he was now uh at points he was on a ventilator and he was near death again like i was visiting every night that i was there knowing that he could pass at any minute so it was kind of like a repeat of the whole thing it was it was really scary and really sad and he was of course he was not conscious for any of my visits and um i don’t think my mom slept the entire time it was she was just basically in shambles but and then but it was nice to be there at such a pivotal moment um then just to fast forward through the entire next year and going through covid and and everything basically it was just a series of coming to grips with the fact that what is what is he lewis’s he got out of the hospital he made it out he’s he he made it home he went through some therapy for for his strokes and then he eventually left uh the therapy centers and then came home and you’d have therapists visiting and nurses visiting and over the over the course of the last i guess you know two years year and a half or more the the amount of external care has has gone down as we’ve come to grips with um you know what his life is going to be like from now on like his capacity i don’t know you know when you when we visited him in thanksgiving in 2019 he would he he wasn’t doing well but he was at home he was he was extremely skinny it was like oh shocking to see him and he wasn’t he wasn’t very communicative and his his it just felt like he was probably 10 of his former self and even since then mom’s and come to the come to grips with how he needs to be cared for and her being the primary uh caregiver for him and nurse for him to to help him do basically everything he does um and that’s been a and so if you if you lay that experience over top of my description at the at the end of last year on the podcast if you can remember my descriptions then maybe it would um shed more light on the the depth of the challenge that we were facing and are facing so it was it was it it’s been extremely frustrating to not physically be there with mom and just to just to have to be there for her over the phone that was the dynamic that i i believe i was describing at the time so i knew that when we came home there’s only so much you can learn over the phone right so it’s i felt like i would learn a lot more being there and and being able to spend and spend an extended amount of time and observe the challenges that mom faces and have bring fresh perspective to how we i could uh suggest changes and start to look into how she might get more help um there’s somebody that that comes in basically a sitter who who sits with louis and makes sure he’s good to go and okay so mom can like run errands a number of times a week um i i was encouraged when we went home that like lewis had he’d gained his weight back and you know he i he was able to call the kids by their names which which was very encouraging and he doesn’t he only he only really speaks when spoken to and he’ll like answer he can answer questions more yes or no are you hungry do you that type of thing he’s not a conversationalist anymore uh he he doesn’t he can’t use a phone anymore much less a computer you know he uh so it’s it is it’s it’s really sad um but it’s also very poignant to it was it was poignant to know it and hear it from mom but then to see the level of commitment and care that she has for him that like coming to grips with this is what their life together is going to be like from here on out uh it’s not it’s not really going to get better at this point we pretty much know that and if we don’t know exactly what this a slow decline will look like but i drew i’ve drawn tremendous levels of inspiration from my mom first of all always because of who she’s been to me and the sacrifices that she’s always made for me but like this takes it to a new level the fact that she does everything for him uh you know he can he can he can feed himself uh and he can get up out of bed and he can stand with a walker but usually he’s he’s she’s moving him from a bed to a wheelchair and but just being being willing to follow through on her commitment to uh take care of him you know to be there uh in sickness not only in health is in her attitude associated with it i mean you know my mom’s all she’s the sweetest person but at a certain point even this even the sweet the people with the sweetest hearts break and sometimes i feel like they’re at risk of uh breaking the most because they because their hearts are so big you know so i think that’s been my fear for my mom is that because she’s such a big-hearted person that there’s more of a risk of of her experiencing that much more pain and she clearly is going through what i mean an unimaginable level of pain where she describes to me that it’s like she says link there are times when i can still see i can see the old lewis i can see it in his eyes like he comes back to me it’s almost like she’s describing someone who has alzheimer’s even though he doesn’t it’s just it that dynamic guy is at play with if if stroke impacts certain areas of your brain um and i was like mama how often does that happen and she’s like well maybe maybe once every few weeks or a month i’ll see that glimpse you know and it’s she’s able to take care of him at this particular stage um but the fact that her heart just as as broken as i i know it is the fact that she’s still able to exercise and live out loving her husband is is i mean i’ve never seen i’ve never had the privilege of seeing that so up close uh so i think i knew it was going to be difficult for that reason but it was but it it’s a it’s a beautiful thing uh and um i i want to memorialize this experience as a as actually a positive experience and and i’m glad to be able to say okay how can i help uh we’re still navigating through that but and then figuring out practically what if things need to change what those are but you see how i mean it’s one thing to look at pictures and have this exit existential dialogue with yourself of is this does this even does this even matter but i think there’s i think that’s the that’s that my experience in in in seeing my what my mom’s going through is kind of a is is the answer to that question for me and but it also puts me in a headspace of like like i was saying with aunt vicki we we’re getting to an age where we’re gonna we’re gonna have to deal with this with eventually with our aging relatives our you know our parents too and starting to think about well what’s that going to look like but um you know you i mean especially as an only child you know i i feel like okay it’s i mean it’s gonna be on me christy has a sister you got a brother i mean it doesn’t maybe in some ways it might it might complicate things but i don’t i mean are you do you think about that i mean it’s it’s still a little early to make plans but then what’s when you’re blindsided by what happens to louis court anything can happen at any time and it’s just okay these are these are decisions that we’re going to have to run point on for our families yeah well i mean i i think about it quite a bit i i would say over the past um few years you know i would say that for me part of it was uh you know my parents haven’t dealt with significant debilitating health problems um but like even something as um small it wasn’t small ended up being a big freaking deal for her but like her breaking her ankle when we were in scotland yeah and then like and being there during that time but then i wasn’t there during her recovery you know i was talking to her staying in touch and i was talking to my dad and like he was transitioning into retiring which actually literally like two weeks or so before we got to north carolina he had taken his keys to to campbell oh really to the law school for the last time because he was doing some sort of like part-time stuff so he’s literally like fully transitioned into retirement and you know they you you look at your parents and you’re like man they’re old you know what i’m saying like you yeah they the way that you perceive them in the way that they sort of present themselves physically the way that they talk you begin to be like oh i have elderly parents you know what i’m saying i mean it’s interesting because my i had a conversation uh with my my dad about this aspect of how you perceive yourself getting old uh-huh and he was like you know because my dad is a tough son of a [ _ ] you know what i’m saying he always has been and will do anything physically that you ask him to do you know he’s so he’s 75 years old but like when he was here a couple years ago like he walked all the way down the hill from my house to the yeah this isn’t something that typical people of that age do yeah and like we play golf together he was gonna go whitewater rafting with us but he didn’t because his back was a little bit messed up from the from the from from golfing because we must mclaughlin’s really know how to swing it uh but he was talking about the he’s like i still see myself as an 18 year old kid i think that’s important you know and until you do something stupid right well but the thing is is that but we were talking about that in in relation to my mom’s health which is which is which is fine but you know she has a she has a little bit of a different attitude i mean for the past ten christmases or so uh she she’ll throw out of this could be my last christmas i’m like mom it could be anybody’s last christmas you know we all could die but yeah it’s there’s this um i think it’s a running joke with her yeah when i just talked to my dad this morning he just had he he just got back from the hospital had surgery for the first time in his life mclaughlins hate hospitals and we don’t like getting sick so we don’t get sick if we can’t help it right okay we don’t like getting hurt so we don’t get hurt if we can’t help it but he’s he’s been he’s had he this is i’m sure we’re gonna i’m gonna be doing a podcast on this at some point he’s had kidney stones and so is my brother and they’re like it’s only a matter of time so they’re like i can’t they’re like they just can’t wait till it happens to me because it’s been so painful for them but he went and got the surgery where there were so many kidney stones and one kidney that they basically opened him up and took them all out of one of his kidneys and it just happened yesterday and so then he just came home from the hospital they left a few days ago yeah they gave them to you in a little bean bag and you play cornhole with it so that’s nothing no i guess uh no i don’t well yeah i don’t know you could probably get him uh but you know i was just talking to him about being in the hospital and he was and he was like he’s like you know it’s no fun and he’s like this and he says i’m not going to do this again he said this is hard when you’re 75 years old you know so i think that there’s been a number of things in the past few years that you begin it begins to register that you’re like okay these people are not going to be around forever and when you get to that stage in life sometimes things happen like what happened with louis that suddenly your your existence and the relationships that you have with everybody else changes dramatically like your mom’s lifestyle has changed dramatically yeah you know my parents haven’t experienced that um and then i start to think like well it’s you know if if mom outlives lewis and then it’s like well is she gonna come out to california and live with me and like we’re not have i mean we have so much other stuff to talk about it’s not like we’re making those plans we’re not talking we we’re we haven’t had a discussion at all about that but just i start to think about things like that it’s like well uh you know and but for older relatives like i know for your mama nell she was in a she was in a nursing home that like you know your parents could visit and like you i even visited mama now a couple of times like uh she seemed all right in there but she she liked to uh she liked to watch television okay she always but she she basically in the retirement home she was doing exactly the same thing that i had only ever seen her do except sands the whiskey and cigarettes she could she didn’t have whiskey in there i don’t think so no smuggled you had to go outside to smoke yeah but in her house she would sit in her chair and smoke cigarettes and drink whiskey and watch television in the retirement home she would just watch television so it probably wasn’t as fun uh but yeah yeah and and you know that was a long time ago and i don’t you know i i don’t remember it well i remember i do because my dad’s also an only child right so uh i remember thinking like oh my dad has like he’s had to like do this he’s had to like take responsibility for his mom because there was nobody else to do it you know she never lived at your house for any period of time did you know the play it was like it was literally like you know it was a place in willington like halfway down the road from it was like three minutes away i know you’re your dad jokes about coming and living with you in sunny california if he outlives mama die yeah and he’s probably he’s only half joking um but yeah i mean the thing i’ve been thinking about mostly with them at this point is especially for my dad because he’s the one who’s kind of transitioning from like having this daily routine of like being a professor and now he’s like retired and he’s like he’s like i mean because when we were on when we were in the mountains together and i was like all right we got to we got to get up it we need to be on the road at like eight o’clock and we said i gotta i guess i gotta get up early he’s like i’ve been getting up at nine o’clock since i retired so he’s enjoying it he’s like and he gets up and he’s like i take my time i go on a walk you know so he’s beginning to sort of figure out what his life is going to be um and i think it’s only a matter of time before he gets a little stir crazy and has to has to do something and it’s always better if you are going to do something i mean that’s the thing i’m encouraging i i when we visited my dad i was watching him closely because we’re so much alike like physically like the way that our bodies are built and like you know it’s uh well first of all like i don’t know if anybody knows that my dad has a form of leukemia like he was diagnosed in 20 it was 2019 i believe he was diagnosed it was uh lymphocytic leukemia he didn’t have he turns out he only has to take a pill and then he got and he got his blood count straightened out and now he’s been going in for checkups every six months and like he’s actually doing great and it’s it’s a it’s it’s very treatable it can be managed with just a pill like he never did had to do like chemo or radiation or i i don’t even know the ins and outs of the specifics of treating right uh what you typ the typical leukemia but this it’s a little different and he’s taking a pill and but um so he’s doing great he’s still i mean he still works he still like works on houses he like moved his entire business down to the beach but he does it on his own terms and he doesn’t have a crew anymore but he’s active and he’s but he’s not and i i that he enjoys it i think it’s that level of engagement i don’t think he would even though he’s golfing more and he’s you know he’s on the beach a lot and of course their main thing is it’s still shagging the night away yep that is a dance to dance for those of you i’m from england but i’m like watching him closely and like what is he what is he able to do and i was like dad you gotta i notice you got a limp and i’m like oh crap am i gonna get a limp and he was like i got i was working on something and like a a screw got caught in my thigh or something like that it was like a barb or something and then he’s like then we went on a trip to the mountains and i got swole up and i got infected and i ended up having to go to the doctor and um it sounded like one of those things where if you didn’t get the infection it could have been bad and he was just getting over that so trutha other than that which he’s basically almost recovered from like he typically doesn’t have a limp and i’m like okay that’s that’s good the limp is not normal at his age he’s still and he’s still able to walk to the pizza shop when the kids at like he made he made his signature ribs then we made homemade peach ice cream we each ate two bowls of this ice cream we’re like completely stuffed and then uh lily says you know what i could go for right now or like a bed it’s like nine o’clock at night ten o’clock at night and um she’s like pizza and i i laughed at her and like i just thought she said it was saying it maybe she was kind of serious but she she was just saying it as a joke and the dad was like well we can walk two blocks that way and there’s a pizza shop and then lily’s like do they sell it by the slice he’s like of course they sell it by the slice if you let me take a shower we’ll all walk over there jack yeah and lily and lincoln looked at each other like is he serious it’s like okay yeah we’re gonna we’re gonna we’re gonna walk we’re gonna walk a couple of miles here at like 11 30 at night by the time everything shakes down at home and he takes a shower and then so like we’re going out there and we’re getting pizza and he’s like he’s moving and shaking now this is a now and this is something that if you’re going to become more like your dad as you get older i think that you know that’s not a that quality of 11 30 pizza is not something i associate with link neal that i know right that’s coming from somewhere else but you’ve got those jeans those genes to be flexible enough to first of all be willing to go but like i i i’ve eaten with your dad before i get the impression that he’s a bigger eater than you he he’s not a i’m a one-plate man and i’m done uh he’s he’s actually slowed his roll a little bit because i like dad if you lost the weight he’s like i’m just you know i’m keeping it i’m keeping it slim by the way he did make it out of the pixelated woods uh this this story there was that they were like traveling and he kept wanting to set up these like they were in these like beautiful places and for the 2000 episode greeting from him i think he thought this is a beautiful spot here in the woods let’s like let’s use the flip phone and get a video of it he had a lot of trouble getting that thing sent so so it was no longer the file was degraded in transfer it wasn’t the phone yeah he had to seriously compress that thing he said he said i shot three different videos for y’all and that was the best one i love it i wouldn’t want it to happen and you know what he’s i’m encouraged like okay so you know what i can probably i can probably do even better than him like i can give more attention to my posture and to my workouts well and you know he and he he made the decision he made the decision to move to myrtle beach right because he wanted to did he wanted to dance it it wasn’t the pizza shop was next to three different dates it wasn’t like places man i got to go to myrtle beach for this job right it was like you know what i can move to myrtle beach like that is a thing that i could choose to do and his wife is the kind of person that’s just like okay let’s do it well no she’s like i want this too guess who bought you know how dad remember he had that like convertible banana yellow corvette yeah even if you don’t remember you can i remember big picture and he sold that years ago guess who has one now nancy’s got a nancy yellow corvette nancy bought one like a new one uh because the new corvettes like no uh it’s an old one they almost look like ferraris it’s an it’s it’s and i don’t know anything about sports cars but i saw a new quarter like a circa 90s they don’t look the same anymore uh hers is red but yeah it’s like they are peas in a pod i’m so happy for them find somebody who likes corvettes and mood of myrtle beach if that’s your thing but one day i’m gonna have to figure out what’s your murder what kind of what’s your corvette but before that i’m gonna figure out how how how does my dad need to be cared for you know it’s like nana nana’s gonna need to know how to be cared for and uh i’m gonna observe what aunt tc and and dad decide there and how that how that plays out but it’s like okay i gotta see one of these days i’m gonna have to make sure that he’s taken care of you know and it’s it’s like man we’re really that old that we got to start figuring that stuff out yep but i mean we plenty of people have done it before us it’s just you find the right people to talk to and i think we can figure it out but it’s it’s sobering it was so and just in summary i think this was a it was a sobering trip it was a it was um you know when it when an ambassador visits somewhere it’s called what it’s called a something trip whatever that’s called it felt like that it felt like i was a um you know i had a few missions that i needed to accomplish in addition to just loving and being loved on but um i mean that was the part of it that that that made it all worthwhile was the fact that we do love each other and uh warts and all aging and all challenges and all and um so it was it was difficult i wouldn’t call it a vacation i would call it more of a more of a reconnaissance mission but using that criteria it it was a success and i was i’m i’m grateful to do it and i think coming back home the things that really made it feel worthwhile was when they’re like we would make inside jokes about family members the kids the kids would be making inside jokes about their grandparents and their great grandma and the food that we ate and the funny things that grandpa says because he intentionally mispronounces way too many words and it becomes a part of our conversation back home it’s like okay the kids have reconnected with their relatives and it means something to them and so one day when they’re looking at photos of of relatives long past it won’t be like who are these people and does it even matter instead they’d be like i know those people and maybe i only got to see them a couple of times a year but i love them and they enriched my life and uh it was it was it was an it was an honor to know these older people who i’m related to you know and i i miss not giving them that gift on a on a weekly basis by living in the same county or the same state but it it was a good reminder that um those connections could still be special and they can be meaningful long term well thanks for telling us about it um i’m going to recommend something that i talked about last week that i think is just fitting with what we’ve talked about today do it uh you know i talked about those four different documentaries or specials to watch but the the one documentary some kind of some kind of heaven uh you didn’t say that one last week it did some kind of heaven yeah i can’t remember it in and of itself but you didn’t say i said inside in and of itself some kind of heaven and then uh tell me who i am oh okay some kind of heaven again is a documentary sort of in an errol morris oh kind of fashion oh that’s the retirement home and it’s the village’s retirement community in florida which is the largest retirement community it’s a small s it’s a large city over 100 like 50 000 people live there maybe that’s where i’m gonna send all my relatives well first of all so we you know we watched it with my brother and sister-in-law and then lance and lacy and then after that on the group chat that we had for that group for the vacation group uh lance or lacey sends a text to the thread and is like you know you can actually go spend a week or spend as much time as you want really as like a trial package at the villages for it’s like it’s like 150 bucks a night or something like that and you go and it’s the people who want to go vacation there to see if this is where they want to go and we were talking about all going on a vacation to the villages like now as you know mid-40s year olds but i thought i thought okay but i thought you’d watch the documentary and wouldn’t want to visit no so i mean there’s a little bit of both it is a it’s a great film because it is a very honest look at the people and what it’s like to be at that stage in your life you know there’s there’s loss and there’s love and uh i think that for some people it’s it feels like it’s an incredible choice and just the things that like you know things that were like kind of obvious to be like oh yeah like when these are the kinds of things that happen in a retirement community now a retirement home is a very difficult a different thing like yeah where mama nell was versus the retirement community which is like these people are constantly doing all kinds of [ _ ] you know and it’s just such a really well done film that it’ll make you think about yourself getting older and what you want your life to be like and how you want your life to end you know what i’m saying like if you want to end well well since i’m in the headspace i might as well go all the way and watch this film uh so i i recommend it some kind of heaven i’m 98 sure that’s the the name of it and i can’t remember which one of the streaming services it’s on but i’m sure you can get it um just google it and figure out all right belch life i mean ear biscuits let us know what you think and we’ll talk at you next week to watch more ear biscuits click on the playlist on the right to watch the previous episode of your biscuits click on the playlist to the left and don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe if you prefer to listen to this podcast it’s available on all your favorite podcast platforms thanks for being your mythical best [Music]