how the patels spend a weekend together

will, my oxford-and-havard-educated best friend in boston, had his parents visit him last week. their daily activities including visiting the museum of fine art, having brunch in beacon hill, and enjoying the classic architecture of old boston.

my parents visited this week as well. i have an aunt and uncle who live in suburban boston; two other uncles came in as well (it's graduation week). the patels do things a little differently. that is, we have no interest in sightseeing, or in fact, doing anything with culture. here is how we've spent the last few days:

• go to home depot to buy wood for home improvement project. dad and his brother spend 40 minutes arguing over which wood to buy. one type is apparently double the cost of the other. when we get to the check-out aisle, i discover that the wood is for a mailbox platform (~ 6 x 8 x 1), and that they were arguing over one that costs fifty cents and one that costs a dollar. forty minutes over fifty cents. this from two brothers who have collectively put five kids through private universities.
• arrive at my uncle and aunt's home. dad proceeds to create his own workshop in my aunt's family room. he lays newspaper down, finds hammers, drills, saws, and tape measure, and works for several hours to make a new platform for the mailbox. i should mention that my dad is an engineer who single-handedly built a screened-in porch, put a deck on top of it, and then finished our basement.
• four hours later he's skipped dinner but finished a state of the art mailbox platform, measured to the fraction of the milimeter and perfectly balanced. my uncle complains that the lettering is slightly crooked.
• for the rest of the weekend, we actually stop the car every time we leave the driveway in order stare at this marvel of engineering for one minute and fully appreciate its beauty.
• at night, we watch my cousin's wedding movie. not the highlight reel. the entire thing. then we watch the rehearsal dinner video, which an aunt recorded with her camcorder. all of the parents announce that the camcorder version is better than the $2500 professionally edited video.
• the next day we sit in the family room and complain that nothing is on TV. then we discuss for two hours what time we should go to my cousin's house to have tea for thirty minutes. then we go there.
• while we are having tea at my cousin's apt, the uncles, in between making fun of each other, grill me about wedding plans and have me go through the wedding budget line item by line item. the idiot that i am, i have my laptop with me.
• finally, our major cultural event of the week: we go to the local cineplex for Cinderella Man (it's really good, btw).
• dinner is the worst thin-crust pizza ever at pizzeria uno's. good garlic bread, though.

in the meantime, i think will and his parents have seen a few more museums and are enjoying the boston pops.