A Hunting We Will Go

The next morning we all rise and Mom is nearly manic as she makes Bill his French Roast and his special high fiber cereal with his required 1% milk. Bill and Estelle are meeting Ellie/Elliott by the novelty shop at 9:30 - but Mom is nervous that she won't be able to find it.

We were just there the evening before.

And countless other times on prior vacations.

Must be the booze.

My daughter brightly offers that we'll walk them there and visit the Fairie Garden again.

We scurry by the houses we passed the evening before - and once we have deposited them at the precise location, and convinced them that it is the only parking lot by the only novelty shop and they are the only little old crazy couple in the lot because it is not open for 2 more hours and therefore they will be easy to spot (as if...) we stroll back to the cottage to enjoy the quiet.

J. will be on his way this evening. Have I got stories for him!

The hours pass much too quickly. It is a gray day and the kids and I have been playing Monopoly and have just about finished the elaborate 1,000 piece puzzle. We bring a new one every year, complete it on the dining table and leave it on display for my sister and her family to see, and then add to their growing collection. We are listening to the Glee CDs I have given to my daughter a few days before her birthday.

Soon all too soon, we hear the car on the driveway. Let the games begin.

Bill and Estelle bluster in and we hear all manner of descriptions of this house and that cottage and what terrible things people have done to their interiors and on and on until my face hurts from nodding and smiling too hard and feigning interest.

Bill has a sandwich (assembled by Estelle, natch) and heads to bed for a nap.

My daughter has been awaiting Mom's return so that we can have the tea party she has been planning in her girly little head all day. She sets the table, assembles trays of cookies and brownies and fruit, and pours each of us a tall fancy stemmed glass of iced tea. She is in her glory. That is, of course until Mom lowers the boom.

They are heading out a day or so early. They love the area but they were happiest in one of the half dozen towns they lived in and bolted from 5 or 6 years ago. They'd like to drive there tomorrow and spend the day scouting out homes for sale and then hit their local antique auction the following day. Can we celebrate my daughter's birthday early? And to sweeten the pot, she offers to buy the cake.

I am torn. Happy to be seeing them off early. Wanting to throttle them both for missing yet another birthday. Would it kill them to put a kid's interests first? They are retired! What is the rush?

We pile into the car and I am pissy with my mother as she criticizes the kids' music and acts like she's done nothing wrong. She allows my daughter to pick out an elaborately decorated cake with enormous flowers and leaves and butterflies and an enormous price tag --- presumably as atonement. I ask a favor since cake doesn't begin to cover the amount of atoning required.

"Mom, J. will be here after dinner, " I begin.

"He's not coming for dinner?" she shrieks.

"No, Mom. He's working and he'll drive up afterwards." (Remember working?) "He'd like to take me to the winery for a glass of wine later. Do you think you can manage the kids for an hour or so after Bill goes to bed?"

She understands what I am saying. She'll skip the wine at dinner.

I thank her and we head for home so I can grill steaks (charred all the way through like Bill likes them...) while Bill noses around in my sister and brother-in-laws liquor cabinet plotting his next load. Mom is picking out a movie to watch with the kids (I know what it won't be...) and I sneak around the side of the house to call my sister.

I feel like I've sold my soul to the devil.