Yikes!
I just did the math yesterday (and then called my long-suffering father in law to double check since referring to my mathimatical calculations as "skills' would be a big fat lie) and realized my in-laws Golden wedding anniversary isn't in the autumn of 2011...it's next October!
I-yi-yi...
Yes, the Nameless Man's parents are still together after all these years. Although, we're fairly certain they don't love each other. (ba dum bum)
My parents realized long ago they might love each other but they sure as heck couldn`t live together so they divorced within 2 years after I was born. Then, my dad died when I was 18 but that`s another (long winded) story.
For their 40th anniversary, my heinous MIL advised me they would like a party and handed me a guest list. So, like the chumpy doormat I am, the Nameless Man and I rented the upper room of our favourite restaurant, hired a D.J. and had a nice sit down meal for about 30 or so... final bill was about $800 each for the Nameless Man and his brother. Nameless Man and I took care of the venue and DJ, the brother only had to pay for half of the dinner. Somehow, their half sister didn't attend or contribute...maybe because she didn't attend? Wish I'd thought of that!
Anyway, back to yesterday. Once the heart palpitations stopped, I realized I don't want to put on another fancy party. I really don't. For several reasons:
1) I don't enjoy my MIL. Not one bit. Her passive aggressive nonsense has gone on for almost 30 years (more on the 30 years later) and I am heartily sick of her. She actually got worse about 15 years ago when she fell backwards while ice-skating on the lagoon with Wonderful Daughter (who swears she never pushed her... I taught her well, she was going to wait until later in the year, once the ice melted before she did any pushing..."let's go feed the ducks grandma..., oops!") and sustained an undiagnosed closed head injury. I have diagnosed her based on observing her horrible behaviour! She was a pain before that, but became intolerable afterwards. And, unlike fine wine, she does not get better with age!
2) They have no friends. Nope, no friends. Due to her stellar personality, they have absolutely no one to hang out with, go to dinner with, go to a show with, have over to play cards...nuthin! She used to have a lovely friend who would go shopping with her and bike riding and tennis but, unfortunately, she drove her off. The final straw for her friend, after years of snide remarks and hurtful comments, was when she showed up to go shopping in a (gasp!) clean, unstained T-shirt she had just pulled from the dryer and pulled on. The friend said she thought the T-shirt would be okay to go shopping in, since she saw plenty of other women her age wearing them in the mall. MIL conceded, yes other women DID wear T-shirts in public, but unlike her friend, they "weren't too lazy to iron theirs first"! This poor gal suffered from low self esteem in the first place...anyways, that was the end.
3) Their family doesn't enjoy them either. The last time I saw Nameless Man's very sweet aunt, who was staying with the in-laws for the weekend along with her adorable new Chihuahua puppy, in a space of less than 15 minutes, my MIL had advised Auntie her beloved puppy looked like a rat, was fat and was spoiled. Right about then I would be training my Chihuahua to go fetch a ladder and lunge for her throat. Nah, I would have just entertained visions of punching her in the throat myself. (I never take Tikki over there for this very reason. He'd do it too! And, I would allow it.) So...who would we invite?! It was tough to get enough numbers to come to their 40th. How pathetic would it be to arrange a big 50th and have less than 30 people show up? BTW, we, the brother and his family along with Nameless Man and our progeny, number 16 of those possible 30 attendees. Where I could round up another 14 is beyond me. And FIL has 4 other siblings! With big Mormon families. No, we are not members.
4) MIL's only sibling is in the process of dying from cancer. Now that MIL is spending every other month in Saskatchewan caring for her, all 4 of her nieces and their families have gotten to know MIL a lot better. So they wouldn't come.
5) Our 30th anniversary is in 2011 and I would love to go on a cruise. We haven't had a vacation since W.D.'s Troubles with the soon-to-be-ex began so a cruise would be great! Hopefully she will have seen the last of that gentleman and can meet a hunky cruise boat captain who would like nothing more than to provide his new, fabulous in-laws with semi annual cruises to exotic locales where they would bask in the sun on white sandy beaches, while sipping tall cold alcoholic...erm, sorry...where was I? Oh yes, a vacation would be nice for our 30th. So if we shell out all our disposable income (bwah ha ha, "Disposable Income", oh, my sides! I am wiping the tears of mirth away so I can finish this post) there would be nothing left in the kitty by August of 2011.
5) Last time, Wonderful Daughter and I did all the work. We printed matching invitations and envelopes along with reply cards. We made all the arrangements. We did all the shopping and decorating. We handled it all. Because SHE wanted a party. Ugh. Wonderful daughter has enough on her plate without worrying about a party. Although she does enjoy organizing (bossing) and does a stellar job of it. If the Thrid Reich had had her in charge, things would have gone quite a bit differently. I envision us all greeting one another with `Heil` while wearing really nice shoes!
6) We are not "fancy party" people. We are "BBQ with a beer and frisbees" people. My MIL watched too much Dynasty and Falcon Crest in the 80's and it addled her brain. Move over Angela Channing... we have a new family matriarch.
7) We are all busy trying to survive the economic downturn and help out our own kids and grandkids. No one is into spending a bundle on another party. At least I know I don`t. And, since brother and his family rarely see the in-laws, even though we all live in the same city, I can hazard a guess they wouldn`t be into it either.
So, I am waiting for the Nameless Man to phone his younger brother to run it past him, but we think a nice family dinner for the 18 of us at a nice restaurant at a golf resort in the Rocky Mountains would suffice. Just picture it, great views, like the picture at the top, and fabulous food, along with a tastefully framed family portrait of us "kids" and our families. Wouldn't that be nice? Even though the food wouldn't be harmonious with her many (imaginary) allergies, and the picture frame would clash with her garage sale decorating treasures.
The Rustica Steakhouse at the Silvertip resort has a fixed price menu with several choices for an appy, main and dessert along with one bottle of wine for $90 to $110 per couple. The projected cost for dinner for 7 couples and some kids, around $800 - $900 and then $200 - $300 for framed pictures if we get them shot outdoors. Hopefully brother's budget would allow for 50/50 this time around, but even if not, we would split it 2 ways. I like the sound of this. Your opinion please?
And, let me assure you, before you even mention it, the fact the family portrait would be shot weeks in advance and NOT include her never even crossed my mind...
I just did the math yesterday (and then called my long-suffering father in law to double check since referring to my mathimatical calculations as "skills' would be a big fat lie) and realized my in-laws Golden wedding anniversary isn't in the autumn of 2011...it's next October!
I-yi-yi...
Yes, the Nameless Man's parents are still together after all these years. Although, we're fairly certain they don't love each other. (ba dum bum)
My parents realized long ago they might love each other but they sure as heck couldn`t live together so they divorced within 2 years after I was born. Then, my dad died when I was 18 but that`s another (long winded) story.
For their 40th anniversary, my heinous MIL advised me they would like a party and handed me a guest list. So, like the chumpy doormat I am, the Nameless Man and I rented the upper room of our favourite restaurant, hired a D.J. and had a nice sit down meal for about 30 or so... final bill was about $800 each for the Nameless Man and his brother. Nameless Man and I took care of the venue and DJ, the brother only had to pay for half of the dinner. Somehow, their half sister didn't attend or contribute...maybe because she didn't attend? Wish I'd thought of that!
Anyway, back to yesterday. Once the heart palpitations stopped, I realized I don't want to put on another fancy party. I really don't. For several reasons:
1) I don't enjoy my MIL. Not one bit. Her passive aggressive nonsense has gone on for almost 30 years (more on the 30 years later) and I am heartily sick of her. She actually got worse about 15 years ago when she fell backwards while ice-skating on the lagoon with Wonderful Daughter (who swears she never pushed her... I taught her well, she was going to wait until later in the year, once the ice melted before she did any pushing..."let's go feed the ducks grandma..., oops!") and sustained an undiagnosed closed head injury. I have diagnosed her based on observing her horrible behaviour! She was a pain before that, but became intolerable afterwards. And, unlike fine wine, she does not get better with age!
2) They have no friends. Nope, no friends. Due to her stellar personality, they have absolutely no one to hang out with, go to dinner with, go to a show with, have over to play cards...nuthin! She used to have a lovely friend who would go shopping with her and bike riding and tennis but, unfortunately, she drove her off. The final straw for her friend, after years of snide remarks and hurtful comments, was when she showed up to go shopping in a (gasp!) clean, unstained T-shirt she had just pulled from the dryer and pulled on. The friend said she thought the T-shirt would be okay to go shopping in, since she saw plenty of other women her age wearing them in the mall. MIL conceded, yes other women DID wear T-shirts in public, but unlike her friend, they "weren't too lazy to iron theirs first"! This poor gal suffered from low self esteem in the first place...anyways, that was the end.
3) Their family doesn't enjoy them either. The last time I saw Nameless Man's very sweet aunt, who was staying with the in-laws for the weekend along with her adorable new Chihuahua puppy, in a space of less than 15 minutes, my MIL had advised Auntie her beloved puppy looked like a rat, was fat and was spoiled. Right about then I would be training my Chihuahua to go fetch a ladder and lunge for her throat. Nah, I would have just entertained visions of punching her in the throat myself. (I never take Tikki over there for this very reason. He'd do it too! And, I would allow it.) So...who would we invite?! It was tough to get enough numbers to come to their 40th. How pathetic would it be to arrange a big 50th and have less than 30 people show up? BTW, we, the brother and his family along with Nameless Man and our progeny, number 16 of those possible 30 attendees. Where I could round up another 14 is beyond me. And FIL has 4 other siblings! With big Mormon families. No, we are not members.
4) MIL's only sibling is in the process of dying from cancer. Now that MIL is spending every other month in Saskatchewan caring for her, all 4 of her nieces and their families have gotten to know MIL a lot better. So they wouldn't come.
5) Our 30th anniversary is in 2011 and I would love to go on a cruise. We haven't had a vacation since W.D.'s Troubles with the soon-to-be-ex began so a cruise would be great! Hopefully she will have seen the last of that gentleman and can meet a hunky cruise boat captain who would like nothing more than to provide his new, fabulous in-laws with semi annual cruises to exotic locales where they would bask in the sun on white sandy beaches, while sipping tall cold alcoholic...erm, sorry...where was I? Oh yes, a vacation would be nice for our 30th. So if we shell out all our disposable income (bwah ha ha, "Disposable Income", oh, my sides! I am wiping the tears of mirth away so I can finish this post) there would be nothing left in the kitty by August of 2011.
5) Last time, Wonderful Daughter and I did all the work. We printed matching invitations and envelopes along with reply cards. We made all the arrangements. We did all the shopping and decorating. We handled it all. Because SHE wanted a party. Ugh. Wonderful daughter has enough on her plate without worrying about a party. Although she does enjoy organizing (bossing) and does a stellar job of it. If the Thrid Reich had had her in charge, things would have gone quite a bit differently. I envision us all greeting one another with `Heil` while wearing really nice shoes!
6) We are not "fancy party" people. We are "BBQ with a beer and frisbees" people. My MIL watched too much Dynasty and Falcon Crest in the 80's and it addled her brain. Move over Angela Channing... we have a new family matriarch.
7) We are all busy trying to survive the economic downturn and help out our own kids and grandkids. No one is into spending a bundle on another party. At least I know I don`t. And, since brother and his family rarely see the in-laws, even though we all live in the same city, I can hazard a guess they wouldn`t be into it either.
So, I am waiting for the Nameless Man to phone his younger brother to run it past him, but we think a nice family dinner for the 18 of us at a nice restaurant at a golf resort in the Rocky Mountains would suffice. Just picture it, great views, like the picture at the top, and fabulous food, along with a tastefully framed family portrait of us "kids" and our families. Wouldn't that be nice? Even though the food wouldn't be harmonious with her many (imaginary) allergies, and the picture frame would clash with her garage sale decorating treasures.
The Rustica Steakhouse at the Silvertip resort has a fixed price menu with several choices for an appy, main and dessert along with one bottle of wine for $90 to $110 per couple. The projected cost for dinner for 7 couples and some kids, around $800 - $900 and then $200 - $300 for framed pictures if we get them shot outdoors. Hopefully brother's budget would allow for 50/50 this time around, but even if not, we would split it 2 ways. I like the sound of this. Your opinion please?
And, let me assure you, before you even mention it, the fact the family portrait would be shot weeks in advance and NOT include her never even crossed my mind...
I've nothing constructive to say. But why, why can't I get Ernest K. Doe's song(sp)"Mother-In-Law"
ReplyDelete/if she would leave us alone/ we would have a happy home/sent from down below/mother-in-law/
out of my mind?
Leah, I have now adopted that as my theme song.
ReplyDeleteWD pointed out this is a weird post but I cannot provide all the backstory. That would set me back years on my shock therapy...*giggle*