Wednesday, 15 June 2005 | Tour guide

My parents visit me each summer. They drive from North Carolina to the Jersey shore (where my grandparents live), and then they travel by train to Penn Station. From there, they take the subway and meet me at my office, and then the three of us divide their bags and head to Brooklyn. That part never changes. What else doesn't change: my father insists on sleeping on an air mattress on the floor, my mom inevitably offers to make everyone sandwiches, and whenever we end up at my aparment for a brief break from the city, my parents sit by my modest metal fan and pant, their bare feet propped on stools.

I feel sort of guilty for making them run to catch the subway and bus so often. I somehow kept forgetting that I had suburban 60- and 58-year-olds tagging along, and that it's asking a lot, to suggest that they regularly sprint and throw their bodies between closing subway doors, especially while they're supposed to be on vacation. The fact that I'm just realizing it now, two days after they're gone, says something about what good sports they are.

We did a few structured things (dinner, brunch, a museum, a comedy show), but mostly we ended up talking, and hanging out with people I like, in places that—now that I think about it—are too hip to serve regular condiments or have any teas that don't involve at least three types of organic berries. That part was kind of an accident, but we made up for it, by eating some lard at Coney Island, and by watching a man insert a screwdriver all the way into his left nostril, just for us.