Guess Whose Not Coming to Dinner, Part Deux

J.'s birthday loomed. And the situation grew more and more awkward.

Mothers Day was a bust. A no show. An anticlimax.

And then Endora's birthday was a debacle. A farce. A slapstick comedy.

And now J.'s birthday was just days away and the heat was on. The situation was becoming a big cosmic game of chicken. Who would lose their nerve first? Who would jerk the wheel to one side in a last minute desperate attempt to avoid certain disaster?

As I have groused before, all of these events are normally celebrated...(OK maybe "celebrated" is not the right word. It is hard to call what the Cullens do an actual celebration. Perhaps "recognized" is a better verb - what with the glaring abstinence from revelry, hoopla, glee, enjoyment of any kind, and of course, alcohol.) OK, let's just say that we show up and have cake for these events at Endora's house. There are a few that are "observed" at Sheila's house. Again, with prohibition-style dining. The chasm was widening with every passing day and every antagonistic slight, and no one was about to voluntarily blink first.

Maybe this was a test. Sheila hosted a good number of her children's pseudo-celebratory fetes. Endora hosted her share of holiday and summer month soirees so that the pool might provide some form of entertainment. Perhaps they were stonewalling. Perhaps in their minds they were making a statement (but evidently somewhat timidly). They may have been saying, however unconvincingly, "Hey if you want a dinner planned for your birthday, J., don't look at us. Get your girlfriend to churn out a little hype for a change!"

No doubt, this should be my responsibility at this point. I could easily summon my inner Martha Stewart and throw a dinner party so J.'s family could shower him with the obligatory golf shirts and argyle sweaters. Under normal circumstances, I would not think of doing differently.

But these are not ordinary circumstances.

I could indeed throw a party. But to do so would create a tipping point. I could invite the regular cast of characters. Sheila and her brood and the newlyweds and Endora. Maybe even those two guys at the end of the table (their names really do escape me) and that obnoxious neighbor with the high pitched voice that she uses to pontificate endlessly.

But would they come? What if they didn't? And if they came, would they snicker at my decorating taste or the cleanliness of my bathroom or the size of my kitchen? And what about my cooking? Would that get the once-over from Chuck, the self-appointed know-it-all cook?

And if I was going to throw a party, I would want to offset the potential for torture and torment by stacking the deck in my favor, inviting my sister and her family so that I would have agents in all the enemy camps.

But even so, all of this seemed like caving. Like I was flinching first. They would hold out, and since J.'s birthday could not go without cake, candles and a chorus of Happy Birthday, I would have to throw it myself. And then I'd have to show my hand. I would have to extend invitations to them all and in a not-so-insignificant way, extend an olive branch by inviting them into my home.

Or, I could keep the party to the immediate family - and perhaps my sister's - and not invite them, any of them, and thereby draw a line in the sand. Declare war.

Or, I play the game and win...

My sister could plan dinner. Host it at her house. Her family, me, J. and all the kids. And when curiosity killed Endora's cat and she called - not J. but maybe one of the girls - she'd learn that we didn't need to rely on her dinner party to celebrate (so there!) nor did we commit the heinous crime of intentionally not inviting them to our party. No, we'd pulled off the social crime of the season. We'd been invited out and were not in a position to do any of the inviting.

Perfect.