Update #3: The Friggin' B-Day Party

Ok, the kids birthdays are exactly a month apart, so I understand the combined party thing; but totally believe in separate parties - it's your special day, you should not have to share it! Then again, we leave in a very rural area, and travel for most of the family members/guests is significant; one party makes sense, and in addition, I only have to deal with these people on one occasion - not two.

Now, she who brings home the bacon, is working overtime two nights a week and half days on Saturday. That means I have almost no time to do outdoor stuff - you really can't mow the lawn with Darth Punkin walking around trying to save all the flowers. Also, it's quite hard to get a half bath clean when the Darth and her apprentice are turning the rest of the house into the Death Star. Then throw on top of all that, I have to do the cooking.

So................the party winds up being on a Saturday (the wife decided it would be ok to take that Saturday off), and the shopping is done. That's it. The Wednesday before, our wonderful neighbors (who have adopted us) took both kids to a small local amusement park - this place hasn't changed since I was a kid. Now, our neighbor is quite often mistaken for being Darth's mother (we call her Other Mother) and her mom realized all I wanted to do was pick up dog poop and mow the lawn. This is Wednesday. It took me five hours to do this, and it's just less than an acre of land. No dog shit, no grass clippings - one chore done.

Moving right along.............clean the house. I understand there's a level of clean that no man can ever achieve in the eyes of a woman, but I do a damn good job. Now, the house has been in a state of renovation for almost a year (but getting much better), and it's hard to get everything. I got everything, I found cobwebs that had been abandoned, dated clumps of dog hair, parts of the renovation long forgotten. Between Thursday and Friday, I had those kids working The Force on cleaning! By Friday afternoon, food was getting prepared.

Party Day: I have to drive 30 minutes one-way to pick up my 83 year old Grandmother who doesn't even know it's summer. The main goal at this point is getting the food done. Our neighbor (not Other Mother, but her Mom) had Darth for the morning, and the boy was napping. After almost an hour and a half of being gone, I arrive to a kitchen that's naked. The meal ticket's upstairs cleaning the tub! Her reason being: it's just needs to be cleaned properly. UUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Last time I checked, it was complete party protocol, to check the status of the bathtub of the host/hostess. Food be damned!!!!! Fortunately, our neighbor - the Mom, not Other Mother, was bringing back Darth and jumped right in to help in the kitchen.

So....we had planned on doing a BBQ pork, and a Spanish style pork. We know there was a likelihood of rain, so I had a tarp set up over the picnic table with easy access to the grills. Likelihood is a friggin' understatement! It rained, it stopped, it rained, it stopped, over and over and over. Now my 83 year old Grandmother is out of her mind, and chain smokes menthols. Of course, she's outside under the tarp (carved in stone at our house - NO SMOKING INSIDE!); once she sees the BBQ come off the grill she clicks into vulcher mode, plate and plastic fork in hand. I haven't even cut it yet, and she's trying to push me out of the way!!! Long story short, (I'll end the Grandma part now) the meal ticket's Mom, Aunts, and sister-in-law brought her home. They had an idea of where to go..........my Grandmother got them lost for almost an hour while insisting she knew where she was going. >.< One more bridge burned.

The food turned out pretty good, we had about 2/3's of what we had planned to make. The weather eventually cleared. We had a piñata. It's amazing how much adults forget when they start seeing little kids whacking the hell out a paper mache Dora the Explorer. For a party that started at 1 PM, me and Other Mother's boyfriend were at the top of my yard around 9:30 PM with my brother-in-law (we're oil and water, but agree alcohol is good) getting him (and ourselves) very, very drunk. Much to his wife's dismay. I only had to walk upstairs, and Matt had to go across the yard.

My Dad had the right idea, mail the presents up and pay a visit after the party.

Scott

P.S. on a side note, all this wonderful crap was going on while I was dealing with the computer issue from Update #2. They say my liver should be fine, but I'm not taking my chances; beer-thirty it is!!!!!