The Party's Over

Thank God.

What a long weekend.

Between late Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, I slept at least 12 hours. Either on the couch or in bed. And I still want more sleep.

We got all our shopping, cleaning, yardwork, cooking, grill assembly and all the other frantic 'company's coming' work done by about 3pm on Saturday. Just in time to go next door for a beer and a Jello shot or two at the next door neighbors' party before the whole fam-damily arrived. Minus mom and dad--we kindly admonished them to stay home and rest before the big day Sunday. Which, come to find out, they didn't. They went to church. Despite the fact that they were planning to go to church AGAIN at 8am the next morning.

The burger cook-out went well. Got to be a little late at night, though. We gathered in the living room to look at some of mom Reinert's very old family photos. And it took Josie a couple hours to make all the flower arrangements. We set everything out for her, and she enthusiastically went to it. She and Tom had picked various fillers and flowers from mom and dad's garden and brought all that down. It had taken me trips to two different stores to source decent-looking yellow roses and carnations that morning, and I had done some quick tromping around roadsides to cut wildflowers and green fillers. I had done some recon the last few weeks to locate this stuff and see how well it would last once picked. The combination of everything in the containers I had decorated turned out better than we had hoped.



Everyone left quite late, and there was only a minor teenage sibling dispute over who would sleep where for the weekend. John and Diana's son and daughter had been told to work it out between themselves who would get the Moosewood Suite, and who would get the 'Suite on Wheels'. We had set up the pop-up camper in the driveway. They both wanted the Moosewood in the worst way, but ended up reluctantly sharing by taking one night each.

Another crisis developed late that night in the form of Diana making the discovery that her dress and Benjamin's dress clothes were still hanging neatly at home, forgotten back in Pennsylvania. After some online searching, it was decided that a morning run to Kohl's for some clothes shopping on the way up to Frankenmuth would be the best way to deal with this problem. Sunday morning church was pretty much out of the question at this point, as there was no way we'd be able to join mom and dad in Frankenmuth (a good 45 minute drive north from us) for an 8am service. The plan had originally been to join them for a later morning service, but mom suddenly decided she wanted more time to freshen up between church and pics at the photo studio at 11am. A not unreasonable request.

Sunday morning we discovered Diana and I are really not that far apart in size: I rummaged through my closet and found a two-piece dress that fit her, and actually looked better on her than it probably ever did on me. Her shoes and necklace even matched it. A little ironing, and it was good to go. Fortunately boys are easier and quicker to shop for, so all they needed was to find a pair of khaki pants and a polo shirt for Benjamin.

We ended up going through two room changes at the Bavarian Inn, to thankfully end up in a much more spacious room. What with kids and a projector needed, there's no way in hell our party of 40 would have fit in the original 23 by 17-foot room. And the number of hours we ended up spending in it, so much the better we had all that extra room. The event began a little after noon, and we ended up leaving well after 6pm.

The signature crisis of the day was one we weren't expecting. I guess that would be how most crises are defined, aren't they? Here we were all hovering over mom's health and tiredness levels for weeks beforehand, and it was dad who ended up getting sick. He suddenly complained of being lightheaded right before the meal was to be served, and said his sugar was probably a bit low. Tim got him a piece of bread and jam, and I sat with him a while out in another room. A little later as the main dishes are being brought out, he leaves the room suddenly. His color hadn't been that great before, and now it was really taking on a grayish green shade. I got up to follow him, trying to keep up with him the best I can in my totally impractical kitten-heeled slides (but they looked nice!). I'm wondering if he's going to do a face-plant in the carpet as he's pinballing off the walls. He told me he had to go to the bathroom in response to my repeated 'dad, are you all right??! queries. And that's pretty much where he spent the next hour or so, getting repeatedly and violently sick.

What we think happened was a combination of too much excitement, too many sweets (he's like a kid at Halloween any day of the year-if there's a cookie or dessert within a mile of him, he'll eat it), too much orange juice that morning, and far too little sleep over the last few days. And forgotten medication, for which Tim drove back to their house to get. A relative who is a nurse had a look at him and suspected a flu bug as well. The staff at the restaurant put him in a room behind the upstairs kitchen with a bed and bathroom where he spent the next couple hours napping. The party progressed as planned, but with us taking turns to disappear, keeping watch outside the door to his room. I got to see parts of the Bavarian Inn I had never seen in all the years I've gone there to dine, and the whole time I spent as an employee there. Actually it was nice sitting there for 20 minutes not having to mingle, socialize or be standing in those shoes. I enjoyed the solitude and the not unfamiliar clatter of a big commercial kitchen.

So there was a long pause in the party program. Some of the boys got to eat very interrupted and cold meals, but everyone got plenty of visiting time. When dad reappeared, feeling much better, we proceeded with the celebration. I cut the cake, at which point BIL Jim attempted to be a buttinski AGAIN. He wanted to save the paper plates for people to take the cake home on. He told the staff to bring out a whole bunch of dessert plates, which we did not and never needed. SIL Diana gave me the necessary backbone to say no to this, and to go ahead and do what we'd planned, which was for me to cut and serve on the plates we'd purchased. Besides, do the math smartboy: the cake will yield 45 pieces if I cut correctly. We have 40 guests. There's really going to be none to send home with anyone. There was one mooch, er, cousin who loaded up 3 plates to take home, and that was it. It was gone.

For the sake of mom and dad and the guests, this really wasn't worth making a scene over. However, after several long late-night discussions about the last 2 months with John and Diana, it's their advice that Tim and Jim have a private talk about all this recent bullshit at some point in the near future. If we are going to move forward and be able to constructively plan far more serious matters for mom and dad than anniversary parties, we need to address control issues now. I am rankled even more now by the private e-mail sent to Tim and I a few weeks ago by Jim, admonishing us to start acting like adults. When on Sunday at the photography studio, it was apparently perfectly all right for him to be making rabbit ears behind Willy Rummel's head to prompt bigger smiles from the kids while they were posing. And when we have a grown man in a three-piece suit instructing Diana and I which plates to be putting pieces of cake on.

The fumes are starting to come out of my ears again...

No, the party was by no means ruined, and it seemed mom and even dad enjoyed themselves, and all the guests mingled and visited to their hearts' content.

And as much as I've dissed Frankenmuth and the chicken restaurants and their touristy cheesiness lo these many years, I have to give kudos to all the staff that took care of our party and Tina the manager who saw we got help with dad, and was on top of everything from start to finish.

The day was incredibly long. I was not in particularly looking forward to standing up and speaking to the group. All four brothers and their wives got up and gave verbal tributes to mom and dad. But we all did it, even Kimm who REALLY hates speaking in front of any size group. Mom and dad were very touched.

Finally, finally, finally, when the last guests were drifting toward the doors and we could pack up all our stuff and take it out of the restaurant, I almost felt like I was being released from prison. An air-conditioned, carpeted prison with a lot of food, girls in dirndls, men in lederhosen and incessant oompah music. I had looked out a window at one point in the afternoon and watched all the tourists (or tourons--Scott's term) freely wandering in the street below, and almost wished I could make a break for it and join them. A live band was playing 'Ein Prosit' outside. The air was still warm, and the sun was shining. And the hanging flower baskets and boxes in that damned town are freakishly gorgeous as usual. I made a crack about wanting to 'Ein Prosit' as soon as we got home. We were carrying heavy bags of leftovers, and luckily Tom pulled up in mom and dad's van and relieved us of those. Then we walked the half mile to our own car on the other side of the river. Tim had lost his awesomely close parking spot when he had had to drive out and get dad's pill container. I kicked off the cute but impractical shoes and walked barefoot the rest of the way. A singularly satisfying memory of the day is my bare feet on the warm smooth wood of the Holz Brucke.

That, and the bottle of wine I cracked open after I shucked off my dress and shoes. And I guess we drink more of it than we've admitted, Ellen, but it was a Riesling. But it was the best, most welcome glass of Riesling I have ever had in my life.