Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Well, Do You?!

The second series of events set in motion during the Pallone Hotel Patio Fiasco of 2009 was my dad showing up after wandering in the wrong courtyard looking for us for some undisclosed amount of time that might have resembled about an hour. Dad shows up with his suitpants and a white t-shirt on and immediately takes a seat of honor and beer from Vince. Gina offers him a brownie, to which he automatically says, "These aren't marijuana brownies, are they?" .......

Because did you know, my family is big on marijuana brownies? And especially serving them on hotel patios? With a million kids around? And especially offering one to my dad? Well, I didn't either. Cut to the rest of us just losing our shit again and it taking a good 5 minutes to regain breathing function before we're able to have a conversation. Now I see where we all get it from. Epiphany.

Which isn't even the funniest part, a while later my dad leans over to my brother in law Mike and says, "Hey Mike, how would you ask an old lady if she wants some chicken?"



And so ends the rest of any coherent conversation during that evening because the only thing that happened after that was a series of different people in different pitch ranges, with differing volumes screaming at the top of their lungs, respectively, "DO YOU WANT SOME CHICKEN?!"

The end.

DO YOU WANT SOME CHICKEN?!

Let me explain.

This past weekend was my cousin on my father's side, Dominic's wedding in Ohio. 2, repeat 2 weeks ago I decided to pack the whole fam-damly up and go home for it. Leading up to our departure a series of hectic things occurred, per usual, and had me contemplating my intelligence score several times over. However, with the promise of things to come in my head, I persevered and boy was I not disappointed.

The wedding was beautiful, outdoors, under the shade of giant oak trees on the front lawn of this tiny little Inn in Granville, OH. After the ceremony, we all smashed inside for the dinner and dancing (aka. free Budweiser and wine). We danced a little, ate a lot, smoked cigars on the patio, and imbibed on a few free beverages. Then the beer ran out. So they broke out Bud Lite bottles and the party really got started. Excuse me, it's hot in her'.

Round about 8:45ish pm the little one was getting tired and we decided to continue the party back at our hotel where we could put him to sleep, go next door and drink the rest of the night away with my siblings. My brother Vince and his wife Heidi came with and voila! Grif hit the sack immediately and we were 3 or 7 drinks in, as well as 3 or 5 philosophical convo's in, by the time the rest of the fam showed up.

Needless to say, more drinks were poured and consumed hastily. And the first of 2 series of events was set in motion: I'm jittery still thinking of how hard we were laughing, or maybe that's the coffee. Who cares anyway. So, all of our rooms had walk out patios to this central courtyard thingy. We were on Vince and Heidi's patio and had accumulated round about 14 chairs from miscellaneous departments for all to have a seat. Mindi, my other sister in law, was the first victim. She was only maybe 1 or 2 drinks into the hotel scene when she decided to go back in the room for something and whamo right into the screen door, full tilt and dropped like a hotcake right ontop of Grant who was the lucky one in the chair closest to the door. What else would you do when you make a fool out of yourself in front of a hugemungous group of people, she blames Grant for "pushing her into the screen door", right.

Next up was Julia, Mindi and Noah's 7 year old daughter. She's talking and walking and talking and whamo II. Screen door meet Julia face. Hello? How are you? For this we try to muster not laughing so as not to hurt the little one's feelings, but no sooner is she out of earshot before we lose it and 1 if not 2 unnamed victims slightly peed themselves.

Third time's a charm and my sister Marie was that lucky charm. She decided to take a different approach and run through the screen from inside the room coming out, so we all got to see her face as she realized mesh is not as forgiving as once thought. And this was a pivotal run-in because she set the screendoor off the track. Setting up the 4th and finale of all screen door run-ins: Noah.

So in an attempt to encourage more gathering and boozing, my brother Noah went to his car to get 2 bag chairs he brought from home to set up outside. He was returning to the patio, from inside the room, 2 bag chairs over the shoulders and a beer in hand. Not only does he smack the screen door with his forehead, knock it to the ground and faceplant, he does it without dropping the chairs or his drink. It was a hotel patio miracle folks, and I wish you were there. Who needs church when you have God making miracles happen every day?

And I'll go on record here as the one who peed my pants, no qualms about it. And yes, it was well worth it.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Next Billy Elliot Emmerges

In terms of stressful life events I'm going to go ahead and throw out a 9 on the 1-10 scale these days. Can I decompress a minute? So in a nutshell, (Help! How did I get in this tiny nutshell?!), in the nutshell, the lazy, gradual merge back into the working world that I was planning on has taken a turn for the worse. But for good reason. The girl, Erin, who had previously taken over my work responsibilities post flying placenta is pregnant and I am awaiting her delivery to return to work part time. However, after a cleverly orchestrated maneuver with the bosses, we worked it so I could return a little early to "review" all the new goings on in our department so I would know what the hell I'm supposed to be doing there when I return.

After exactly 2 half-days of reviewing, Erin's baby decided he couldn't possibly miss this year's Tony awards and so Evan was born last Friday afternoon. Mama and babe are healthy and happy and loving life currently, whilst I shi# my pants because we have about 4 million things going on and I don't even know which button turns on the new printer in my office. Holy Xanax, Robin.

Remind me why I wanted so desperately to return to the working life of bees? At this point I would like to retract those statements and go back to wearing my pajamas all day and drinking 14 cups of coffee while watching my tivo'd episodes of Home Sweet Hollywood and Top Chef. Sorry about the confusion. No, I don't want to mastermind the entire department's study enrollment nor send out faculty emails about research updates or really even wear my hospital id. So leave me alone. Now pass me my coffee.