Families, sheesh!

So, I survived the baby shower/family reunion. It went pretty smoothly, in fact. There was enough food to feed the county and everybody who arrived brought another 12 pack. I kept myself busy cutting strawberries for the mimosas that T and I drank… I think one other person asked for a mimosa and we were happy to share. Somehow the three of us got through 4 bottles of champagne. I’m hoping that someone else was having mimosas!

I met the eldest member of the family and she and I got along great. Great Aunt Yvonne is the last member of her generation ~ T’s grandparents are all gone. The fact that she and her husband flew out from Houston was pretty astounding. There’s a bunch of history between her and the rest of the family but it was too ancient and complicated for me to get worked up over.

The only real awkwardness for me came when T’s brother-in-law, who is a jerk, grabbed her by the neck while she was barbecuing. He was trying to put her in a choke hold for some reason. She yelled for me to come out and pull him off. Well, shoot. That puts me in a fairly awkward position. I will not let anyone rough up my girlfriend, of course. And even though I am smaller than him, I am a black belt martial artist. So, restraint was called for but no tolerance of unwanted physical contact. I pulled him off her and walked him a few feet away before letting him go. Told him, “No means no. Hands off the girl.” Boy, was he mad! I knew he would be. I knew perfectly well that being shown up by a small, middle-aged woman does not sit well with most men. Tess should have just stabbed him in the leg with the barbeque fork and left me out of it. Oh well, I’m not too worried about his opinion of me. My opinion of him is pretty darned low.

We were there for what felt like forever! Got there about 11:30 in the morning and didn’t get home until nearly 9pm. Way too long for me. And, we had been home about 20 minutes when T’s cousin and her daughter stopped by on their way wherever. Holy crapola, people! They stayed for about two hours. I was falling asleep on my feet by that time. And, irritatingly, her cousin kept calling me by the short form of my name ~ which only my own family calls me and only occasionally. That bugged me.

Now, last week I was thinking, ok, we’ve had our obligatory family get-together and it’s out of the way. We’re good until the holidays roll around. Ha!

So here’s the thing: we are building a sun room and have bought a small hot tub for it (yay!). The hot tub was supposed to be delivered on Saturday afternoon. Really? Saturday, July 4th? Yep, says the guy, it’s just another work day. OK, fine. So, we get T’s brother lined up to be here to help us lift it off the trailer and onto the deck. The delivery was supposed to be at around 4pm. Unbeknownst to us, T’s mom decides that since Mark is going to come over at 4, the whole family will come with him and we’ll have a barbeque. She lets us know of this plan on Thursday. There is no way that T can tell her mom no. She just can’t. So, ok, I’ll suck it up and be the nice girlfriend even though we just saw all these people one week ago.

Well, the hot tub guy calls and says he can be there around noon instead. Quick call to Mark, can you come over at noon? Sure, should I bring Mom and the kids? NO! We are not eating until 6pm. Do NOT bring your mom over until 4 or 4:30! Got the tub delivered, all looks good, sent Mark home, thinking a little nosh and a little rest before the family arrives, a quick shower, we’ll feel fine.

Then her Mom calls again. Oh, your cousin Roberta, her husband and their teenage daughter are on their way over. They want to see you before they go back to Arizona. So, yeah, the cousin, the husband, the daughter are there for an hour before T’s mom, brother, niece and nephew arrive. Sigh.

We’re all sitting at the table on the deck. Drinking a beer, chatting. The rest of the family arrives. I go inside to get something and when I come back, T’s mom has taken my chair and is holding forth to the table. There was nowhere left to sit on the deck so I went down into the yard and sat in the shade. If these had been my relatives, I would have made one of the teenagers get up and give an adult a chair. But apparently that doesn’t happen in this family. It actually worked out better for me because it was much cooler in the shade and I could get a few yards distance from all of them. I put the sprinkler on and the smart ones and the kids walked through it occasionally to cool off.

It was another exhausting, loud, trying day. And, since it was the 4th it wasn’t over by a long shot. Shot… ha! Get it? Doh. But, that’s enough for now. Don’t get me wrong, I really like T’s mom and most of her family. They are just fatiguing. And two weekends in a row is too much. Suffice it to say, I was glad to get back to work this week.