10.02.2006

A beautiful day

It was little brother's second birthday party yesterday. Every time we have an official event at our house (birthday party, cook out, etc), there is a countdown that starts a week beforehand. DearWife is always doing something. Half of the time she'll plead for me to watch a show with her, only to force me to repeat everything across the house because she's scrap-booking or cleaning, or whatever.

But when she is having people over, it's much more intense. It goes something like this:

  • T-1 Month: Decide on theme, get gift bags, and gifts for the kids you invite.
  • T-7 days: Realize that party is 'only' a week away. Begin to stress. Start to make several lists.
  • T-6 : Roam the house and note anything that needs to be done. Record it in notebook. Make sure to tell husband that there is TONS to do, and his help WILL BE REQUIRED.
  • T-5: Compose final lists (shopping, cleaning, etc)
  • T-4: Begin cleaning house from outside in. Focus on things that NO ONE WILL EVER SEE first.
  • T-3: Clean main area of house (phase I). Reiterate to husband that his help WILL BE REQUIRED
  • T-2: Shop for groceries. But not all of them. No matter how many lists there are, it is physically impossible to get everything needed. Tell husband that he's going to have to get more groceries the next day.
  • T-1: Mention every half hour how much there is to be done. Work all day doing .... OK, I have no idea what she's doing here. I just know that there is a flurry of activity. To be honest, I probably wouldn't' notice if I came home and the living room was painted. Send husband out for more groceries.
  • T-0: Send husband out to get the groceries that were left off of the previous two trips. More (mystery) activity.
  • Party: Everything goes incredibly well.
I know, you think I'm exaggerating for effect don't you? ha. The crescendo of activity usually hits the night before the party. But a funny thing happened on Saturday. Big Brother had a T-Ball game. So, of course we went. And then a funnier thing happened. We stayed at the park for another 45 minutes. And then again, we went out for dinner afterward. I whined later and pointed out that I was tired, so DW said "why don't you go get groceries tomorrow morning."

There was a little bit of trepidation on my part. She was relying on my for the main course. The day of the party. She was delaying the peak activity level to let me sleep. So, the next morning, I was getting ready to take the kids to the store. She gave me the last (4rth), run down. Two liters, blah blah blah....then "now listen, this is important. Take your cell with you because we need to get ham. Jewel has spiral cut ham, it's right here (she draws a map). It should take about 20 minutes to heat up, but check."

So I double check the ham. No spiral cut. I ask the butcher (asking for help with anything is against my principles generally, so I'm really making an effort here). Nope. So I find a ham that looks like spiral cut and check it out. It's not cut, but it says cooking time "20 minutes." I call DW to let her know, and I'm off.

We got home, unloaded all the stuff. Then I happened to glance at DW. I knew there was trouble when I could see (literally) every vein in her head. I mean, I could see red through her hair. Seems I should have kept reading. The cooking time was "20 minutes per pound." It t-90 minutes. For a second there, I had an image of 6 cop cars pulling up in front of the house. I saw a headline "Local man killed because he got the wrong ham. Cops call it justifiable homicide."

I got back to Dominicks and got a spiral cut ham, and everything ended up fine. Oh, and there was a party too. I can't tell you much about it. I don't think I really heard much besides a general roar from 6 kids running amok for 5 hours.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

IT WAS a beautiful day in every sense of the word!!!!!