Today I am going to put this baby to bed. What I thought would be a good idea in rehashing what was a root canal weekend has pretty much turned into another root canal. Reliving in my mind what was not a great weekend has put me back in the mood that I was in each and every morning of my trip. Nothing like starting the day off right. I have found sanctuary in the fact that Jeanne and I will be traveling down to North Carolina for 5 days over the July 4th holiday. My favorite thing in the entire world is to go out on the beach and watch the sunrise at around 5:30a.m. while walking in knee deep water. Last night I found a pretty good picture that is now gracing my dual 19″ monitors that sit before me as I type that makes me salivate for the 4th to come fast. The picture nails the lighting off the waves that can only be captured at the time the sun rises. Let’s get going on the finale….
IV. Sunday
A. Let’s go fishing
I woke up Sunday morning at 4:15am to hit the road. The drive from the hotel to my grandparents house on the lake is only 15 minutes, so I decided to swing by Walmart on my way to buy some new lures that I was sure would enhance my fishing experience. I arrive at my grandparents at 5:00am and my father walked out to greet me as I walked into the house. We were out on the boat by 5:45 and I had already caught 5 bass by 6:00am. Could life get any better?
a. Holy fishing Batman!
I only had until what I thought was around noon to 1:00pm to fish, and Dad and I were doing well. By noon I had already landed 18 bass and was pretty much ready to be done until my father took us in the boat to the other end of the lake near a beach where we stumbled upon a mega bass filled hotspot. Over the next hour, I took in another 10 bass and was now being held hostage on the boat by my father because he didn’t want to go in since we were doing so well. Jeanne was still at the hotel working on her Masters work as well as report cards for the end of year.
b. Where are the damned Cicadas?
I was pretty upset that they hadn’t emerged yet. Last time I was at my grandparents when the Cicadas were up, I remember catching more fish than ever. We use the Cicadas for bait, but we did well even without the little insects.
c. Dad, I hate to tell you this but you have Mad Cow disease….
While we were out on the boat, I decided to break the news to him that our bloodline is cursed and that Red Cross will not accept our Blood due to the fact that we have traces of Mad Cow disease in our blood. http://dennismitchell.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/bad-blood/
http://dennismitchell.wordpress.com/2007/03/30/bad-blood-redux/
My father laughed. I was borderline humored/pissed off by his response. The first thing to come out of his mouth, “Well that explains everything….” followed by some serious laughter. I think that I personally have said that exact same statement 100 times since learning about my long lost connection to my cattle bretheren. I see a cow now and I can relate.
d. Grandpa’s secretly upset.
After we made our way back inside and the stench of fish was upon us, I decided to sit down and chat with Grandma to confirm what my father had told me on the boat about Grandma showing some serious signs of forgetfullness and possibly signs of Alzheimers. Grandma asked what Jeanne was up to at the hotel, and I explained that she was so happy to have me out of the hotel room so that she could get some work done. Grandma replied that that was what she figured since Jeanne finishes her Masters in a month and the end of the schoolyear is upon us. She said that was what she told Grandpa when he became angry at the fact that I could go fishing for half the day while I had apparently locked Jeanne in the hotel room with no lights and no television chained to the bed against her will being a very bad husband. He didn’t say all that, but the fact that he thought me leaving her in the hotel at her request was a poor husband choice did kind of shine the light on the fact that my grandfather a. doesn’t know me well enough and b. has such an old school mentality and is still mentally stuck in 1940.
e. Grandma’s got alzheimers?
As I touched upon this in the last bullet. I had my concerns while chatting with her after fishing, but my concerns were squashed on Monday when she seemed to be back to her normal self.
f. Grandpa wants to sell the house?
This is big news. They live on around an acre on a lake and it is obviously getting too much for Grandpa to care for as he climbs to be near 80 years old. They do not need such a large house. The house has been in the family for 30 years and I couldn’t imagine life in the family without it. Honestly, Jeanne and I have decided that we will buy it if they decide to sell and none of my aunts and uncles step up to buy it to keep it in the family. This could seriously be our best shot at a vacation house on a lake. The house would easily go for 700K to a cool million in the Chicago Suburbs because it is a large beautiful house on a lake, but down there it wouldn’t go for more than 250K. I think we could find a way to make it happen.
B. This isn’t what I signed up for!
After joining up w/Jeanne we were headed off to the family gathering that was just supposed to be me, Jeanne, mom, Shawn, Chris (older bro), Samantha (his wife), and their 5 beautiful children. Instead it was all of us, plus Grandpa, aunt and uncle in town from texas, 17 cousins, another uncle and another aunt, my mothers fiance Kurt and his daughter, son and granddaughter. I don’t know how the crazy math worked out, but in all there was a total of 33 people in the back yard that were all related in some sort of fashion. Now that I think about it, as much as I rip on it, that has to have been the largest gathering of family members on that side of my family in my lifetime. It was very reunionish, and honestly, that is not what I had signed up for that day.
a. I have no desire to meet new cousins.
I did meet a sleu of new cousins that I really was not excited about, although I should have been.
b. Meet Billy, your 28 year old cousin with 5 children who pretends to be adopted and not related the the white trashiness that is my family.
Billy was funny. We are a red neck family. At this pseudo reunion, Billy was wearing Khaki pants, a long pressed Ralph Lauren dress shirt, brown leather belt, and brown leather dress shoes. IT WAS 85 DEGREES OUT AT A BACK YARD BARBEQUE. My mom’s fiances 20 year old daughter with a tongue ring and many visible tat’s going through a divorce holding her one year old said it best when she asked me if he was gay. The highlight of meeting Billy was him pulling out a Macbook pro laptop at a banjo family reunion and showing pictures on the laptop. I would bet my life savings that 90 percent of those in attendance had never seen a laptop before. The icing on the cake was Billy pulling out his family tree software where he traced the family tree back to London. This pissed many family members off because Grandpa had always told everyone that we had come right off the boat from Ireland. This debate ended when Billy’s dad said I don’t know where the hell you got that info, but Grandpa would know where we come from. I believe Billy.
c. Once again, this isn’t what I or my mother/mother’s fiancee signed up for.
Kurt, my mom’s future hubby were supposed to be at his house on the mississippi for the weekend, and instead were hosting a party. Kurt was not happy.
d. Mom has already had too much
not much to add her. What is new. Mom was happy by 6:00.
e. Why are they sending my wife and sister in law to the store to buy my mom’s fiancee some whiskey?
This scared me
f. Let’s take Shawn(little brother who was back from the Military on leave) out for drinks for the first time ever since he is now 21 so we can get away from the banjo music that is my family gathering before the whiskey is opened.
Not much to add here. We went down to Peoria for drinks on the Illinois River. It was fun to have beers with my little bro for the first time.
V. Monday
A. Let’s see my little bro off to the Airport!
a. What’s wrong Shawn?
They arrived at my hotel to say good bye and Shawn was in tears. Apparently he and Mom had gotten into a fight that morning.
b. What’s wrong Mom?
When seeing her Son now heading back to the military for another year crying, she too started crying and I can only describe the moment as awkward.
c. Why is everyone crying?
d. Let’s go hang with the relatively normal side of the family.
We went back to the Grandparents on the lake and had a nice lunch while chatting on the back deck for a few hours. It was nice to wrap up the trip on a normal note.
B. Let’s head home.
a.Let’s pick up my car that we left at Jeanne’s fathers on Friday.
When we got back into town, we swung by the father in laws to pick up my car and drive home seperately. Jeanne apparently wanted to stay there for a while while I was anxious to get home and relax from a long crazy ass weekend.
b. Let’s piss off the wife.
It became obvious to Jeanne that I wanted to leave, so she said to go ahead and go. I didn’t think twice and hit the road. Jeanne stayed and had dinner with her father. I learned later that night that Jeanne was upset by my quick departure. I remember something being said like “I visited with your crazy ass family for the whole weekend, and you can’t give my father an hour of your time?” That is not what she said, but that is how I heard it. Loud and clear. She was right, and I felt bad.
c. Let’s just get home and lick our wounds from this retarded weekend.
Amen.
Sorry for the length in this odyssey. It was a crazy weekend that needed to be told. Maybe we could make a made for TV drama about it. This could have seriously been an extra 5 posts but I had to get it out before the weekend. I think I am breaking a monster blogging rule in length, but it’s my blog, my story and my life.
Let the weekend begin!
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