Busy, and very stupid, week ahead

It’s gonna be a busy week.  Ugh.  I was hoping for it to be just a normal week but those plans got changed on Saturday evening with just one phone call.

 

See, my Mom retires this Friday.   After 42 years at the same company she has finally decided to call it a day.  She keeps saying its no big deal, just another day, etc, etc.  But I think it is a big deal and she just doesn’t want to let on.  Don’t get me wrong, she deserves the break after that many years. But I honestly don’t think she knows what she is going to do with her time. 

 

So twice this summer I had brought up the idea of throwing her a retirement party.  DH and I thought it would be a good idea and were even willing to do the majority  of it.  I mentioned to her "friend" and he was just being an absolute a&& (not unusual if you knew him) and ignored me because God forbid he may have to pitch in a few bucks towards something.  So I mentioned it again in August and said I would like to reserve the town hall in our township back home, which isn’t that far from my Mom’s house and it has everything that we would need (kitchen, bathroom, tables, chairs, heat, etc).  Again, just got blown off and that was that.  So I figured, forget it. 

 

Saturday around 5 or 6 the phone rings.  DH went to answer it but didn’t recognize the number so he read it off to me and I told him to answer it because it was Mom’s "friend".  He starts off the conversation with "Ma’s retiring on Friday".  Um, yeah, DUH!  So he says that he’s thinking of throwing her a party.  Helloooo……     All DH and I could do was roll our eyes.  I mean, seriously, I asked about doing this multiple times this summer and he thought it was a stupid idea.  But now that HE wants to do it suddenly it’s a great idea and everyone is supposed to jump on board and be all happy about it.  Actually, I don’t think he really came up with the idea to do it.  There’s an older gentleman that they go and spend time with and have dinner with from time to time and he’s the one that is doing all fo the food and stuff, so I think it was his idea. 

 

So the party is apparently going to be on Saturday.  We asked what time and he said "maybe around 5, maybe 6.  I don’t know"  Well if your going to invite people ya kinda gotta know that!  And get this, he’s not inviting anyone until at least Tuesday becuase he didn’t want to do anything about the planning until my Mom wasn’t around.  And since she has Monday’s off he couldn’t do anything until Tuesday when she is back to work.  So this party planning is on hold, on their end anyway, until at least tomorrow.  And get this, he is CALLING everyone and inviting them instead of sending out invites to them.  Oye.  And the real kicker, is that he is only inviting his family, some friends from around where my Mom works her 2nd job, her bosses from the 2nd job, and maybe (that’s a huge maybe) her friend from work if he can figure out how to get ahold of her.  No one from our side of the family.  And that’s because he didn’t want to invite all of them, only a couple.  And well, with the way my family feels about us in the first place, that would NOT be a good idea.  So I told him either invite them all or none at all.  So he opted for none.  whatever.  We asked him how many people he was planning on invitinig and he said he figured it would be at least 50 if not more.

 

The older gentleman is making the roast beef sandwiches from scratch, beans and a bunch of other stuff for the party.  He’s doing all of taht cooking himself without any help.  All D (mom’s idiotic ‘friend’) is doing is buying some chips, pop, a pan of brownies from Sam’s (because HE likes them and that’s the only reason he’s getting them) and a barrel of beer.  DH and I are doing the huge cake, veggie tray, sausage and cheese tray, and the odds and ends (pickles, black olives, dips and other stuff like that).  I don’t know if anyone is getting plates and that sort of thing or not becuase he hadn’t planned that far ahead when we last talked to him.  My biggest fear is that he’s not communicating his ideas to the person doing the main part of the food.  And while the cook might be thnking more like 20-25 people there is more like 50+ coming and there just won’t be enough food. 

 

To top it all off he called while my Mom was "pretty close to where I am" he said.  Then why the heck are you calling and planning a party when she’s close enough to possibly hear you??????  Especially since it’s a surprise party!  Idiot.  So he says he’ll have to call back on Tuesday "or whenever I get a chance" to tell us what he’s got figured out.  Apparently someone at some point made some type of salad to which he didn’t quite know what it was but he liked so he’s going to find them and ask them if they could make it again for th eparty.  AGain, whatever.  Sounds stupid to me. 

 

I think my Mom may have a clue something is going on.  Probably becuase he started bugging her this weekend about whether or not her employer was going to throw her a party or not.  She said they wanted to but she told them she didn’t want that or she would leave work early.  So they are just having cake at the most it sounds like.  She is adamant she doesn’t want this to be a big deal kind of day and just wants to go to work like always, do what she has to do there and when she’s done just go home and forget about it becuase she just knows she doesn’t have to go back.  So after bugging her relentlessly about that they he started in on where she wanted to go out for dinner on Friday night to celebrate.  Again, she was adamant she doesn’t want to do anything.  All she wants is to stay home, sit back, relax and enjoy watching TV.  Apparently he normally works until 8 p.m. or later any other Friday so she told him to just do what he normally does and let her relax in peace.  But that isn’t going to happen because, well, we will be up there so there is no "peace" when the kiddos are running around!  lol  But she enjoys them so that won’t be a big deal.  Now he wants me to email her and tell her we are coming and tell her that the kdis want to see her, etc.  Which they do, but she is going to get mighty suspicious if out of the blue we suddenly decide to come up for a visit on the same day/weekend she is retiiring.  Especially since the plan was that they were going to come and visit us the weekend after.  She is definitely going to figure something is up I think.

 

Then late last night I get an email from her telling me how he wanted to know about a party at work, wanted to know where she wanted to go for dinner Friday night, etc.  She said " I hate parties and I hope he gets it through his head" or something to that effect. She does NOT want a party.  And here we all are planning this stupid party for her.  Trying to bust our butts to get everything in place, witho

ut her knowing hopefully, so that we can surprise her with someting she doesn’t want.    Ugggh.  Can anyone else see this being a diseaster????

 

And instead of having in the nice clean town hall like I wanted it he decided to have it in his shop.  That’s right, in his WOOD SHOP.  Blech.  That place is stuffed to the gills with crap and he said they are going to be putting in alot of hours this week to get it cleaned out for the party.  Still doesn’t make up for the fact it’s basically a garage that is dirty, dusty and just blech.  He thinks it’s great because there is a corn burner in there so it will be nice and warm for everyone.  I don’t think there is enough space for any number of people to be in there at any time, especially if you plan on having a palce for anyone to sit.  And  that stupid corn burner is just a hazard to have around with kids being in there because it’s right out in the open and is VERY hot all the time and anyone can get badly burned on that thing.  He sees nothing wrong with that plan.  Not to mention there is no bathroom there.  So we’ll have to use the bathrooms in the older gentleman’s apt and D’s apt, which is right across the yard from the shop.  But the toilets aren’t gerat int here so they get clogged easily, don’t shut off, etc.  So someone is constantly going to be on bathroom duty to make sure they aren’t overflowing all over the place.  Ugggh.  And the only people it is close to is his family and the few friends he wants to invite from that area.  The people my my works with and other long time family friends all live about 15-20 miles away from this backwoods place. And if you don’t know the area you won’t find it very easily.  It’s all around just stupid.

Yes, I wanted to have a party for my Mom. But I thought she deserved something better than this.  This is truly a very shoddy, thrown together crapfest.  And I don’t think she will be happy one bit.  Sure, she might have a decent time at the party once she gets there. But getting her there is going to be a hassle.  There is nothing we are going to be able to tell her that won’t get her mad and chewing D out for all the way there.  Especially since if we are just going out to dinner or whatever lame excuse we could come up with this party is 10 miles in the opposite direction from her house to where we would normally need to go.  Not like it’s "on the way" and we can just swing through and call it a day.  And he wants to put up signs so people can find the place ahead of time for the ‘surprise’ part of it.  As if she won’t see those and immediately know something is up, which will make her even madder yet.   I just don’t see this going smoothly or complaint free from her.  Not the way he’s doing it.  He thinks he’s all smart and sneaky about doing this but I think it’s going to create more problems than what it’s worth.  She really would have just rather had nothing done than this.  Especially since it’s all his family and people she probably could care less to have around.  And the only reason they are all going to show up, if they do at all on such short notice, is for the free food and unlimited beer.  This is just stupid.

 

But because he’s insistent this is going to happen and that we needed to get some food for it DH and I went out and got some of the stuff this eweekend that we needed.  We checked around on cakes.  DH wanted me to order it from the same place we got our wedding cake because it was delicious and he loved the frosting they had. But I called this morning and they no longer have that frosting as an option so they are no different than any other place, only more expensive.  So I will have to order it down here, and TRY to get it the party intact.  That should be interesting.  Not easy to transport a full sized sheet cake in a minivan, that is fully loaded with our bags for the weekend, the other food, stroller, etc.  If it gets there in one piece I would be amazed.  But we’ll have to make it happen, that’s all there is to it. 

 

So this week is a busy one getting all fo the stuff made and ready for Friday when we head out of here. Not to mention just the normal week stuff that I do every other normal week.  Plus I have to get the bags packed and loaded so I can figure out where to put the cake and other things so they don’t get crushed when I pick them up on Friday.  And, since she doesn’t know this is all going down, we can’t just go straight to her house.  Nope, we have to make a huge detour and go to where the party will be held to drop off this stuff first.  Then back to her house.  Just alot of extra running around for us just so we can hide what is going on. 

 

And since she won’t know we can’t do any of the prep work or set up of the party.  Becaues there is nothing we could say that would get us out of the hosue to be able to get over there to do any of the work without her being with us or wondering what we were up to.  So hopefully there is somebody who is goign to be there to set this all up or it will be a total bust.  His plan is just to wait until the time for the party and then just go over there.  Well, that just doesn’t seem like it will work to me.  But whatever.  I’m just along for the ride.

 

I’m just totally stressinga bout all fo this.  I would like for it to turn out good for her.  But I don’t know if this will the way it’s going.  I’m trying to get a little bit done each day that can be done ahead of time. Some stuff can’t be done to far in advance though.  But until I hear more from him I don’t even know if what I’ve done is all that I need to do.  I may end up having to go out and do more shopping or something to fill in the gaps once he figures out who’s doing what.  And I likely won’t know that until at least tomorrow at the very earliest. 

 

I just don’t know.  this is typical planning and behavior for this idiot though.  Can’t plan ahead, can’t do anything the way it should be done.  Nope, always have to do it half assed and then wonder why it blows up in your face.  He does everytihng in life like that.  Which gets under all of our skins REALLY fast.  I think if ti truly goes really, really badly I’ll be glad to be able to point a finger at him and say "it’s all his fault!"  lol  Becuase if it had been up to me we’d be doing this in a nicer place, with more planning, and it would have been a much nicer party overall. 

 

Wish me luck!  Maybe I won’t have to worry about whether o rnot the cake makes there intact, maybe I should be more concerned about WHO will be wearing a full sized sheet cake over their head when she hates her party!!!  lol