Running Commentary

The REAL Post that Should Be Titled…KILL ME NOW. Seriously? KILL ME NOW. July 24 2006

We went on picnic Saturday.

With Chris’s Father.

That alone should be enough information for you to send me cyanide. Or perhaps a nice letter bomb.

You see on Friday I found myself at my father-in-laws house fixing his computer (actually no…I was not fixing I was simply CHANGING his address on his invoice & estimate macro’s AND showing him for the 105th time HOW TO ACCESS his internet…click the blue “e”).

ANYWAY, his woman (whom is lovely) suggested we get together the very next day for a picnic. Her granddaughter had been up for 2 weeks and was leaving to go home again (Toronto) on Sunday. She and Brendan got along really well, and wouldn’t it be lovely for them to spend the day together.

OK! I love a picnic..I’m a sucker for basketed food. PLUS I know about 113 awesome places for a picnic around here.

Father-in-law…lets call him Henry the Horrible proclaims that we needed to choose a place that had a boat launch.

FINE.

So I thought of another place. FABULOUS lake…a small waterfall…beautiful.

And we planned to go at 2 the next day. I volunteered to make salads (a pic nic food I adore).

Great!

We also agreed that we needed to travel with them seeing as A:they have no idea where to go & B: we recently sold our truck and have no vehicle at the moment (shut up..that’s another post).

At 9:30am the very next morning Chris and Henry-the-horrible headed downtown to hunt and gather for whatever ingredients we might need.

Chris quickly returned and we began assemblig a potato salad, a pasta salad and a fabulous beet salad (which on Noah and I eat but that’s beside the point), they had also purchased pork chops and hamburgers and hotdogs.

YUM!

And it was pretty much all down hill from there.

At 12:53pm the phone rang, on the other end was Henry-the-horrible asking if we were ready to go. We were not as we had ALL previously agreed to meeting at 2 oclock. AGH!

We RE-agreed to meet at 1:30 and stepped up the salad making a notch or two and had everything ready on the front step for 1:30. 1:45 Henry-the-horrible pulled into our driveway. With 2 other people in the truck. His truck seats 6. So we had a slight detour while we picked up his woman’s car, because i am a bitchy stickler and didn’t agree to let someone ride without a seatbelt. HELLO?

Drive drive drive drive drive…oh look a wolf…he crossed the road in front of us.

Drive drive drive…ok Henry-the-horrible you’ll be making a left up here around the corner.

mumble mumble.

As we turned into the picnic spot I mentioned that it is actually part of a provincial park and as such you need to fill out a little card, drop $5 in the box and stick the card on your windsheild.

::blink blink::

Nothing..not even an acknowledgement.

Fine..see if I care.

Once we arrived we all scrambled out to the dock….everyone had a peek around and I told them the actually picnic spot was about 1km up the trail. WELL! You’d have thought it was 150km up the trail with the commotion it caused. I mean seriously. He was down there muttering away to Chris about how we couldn’t possibly bbq from there and how can we drag a bbq 1km up a trail and blah blah f-ing blah blah.

So I may have snapped or something. I took Noah by the hand and said calmly (kind of) “I am going up the trail to stream & waterfall. YOU can all stand around here and bicker for all I care.” And off we went. Brendan and the other grandchild joined us. We were at the waterfall for probably 30 minutes before we finally heard them lumbering around in the bush below us.

When we located them they were still in a BBQ frenzy. I finally shouted, with my arms above my head, WE DON’T HAVE TO PHYSICALLY TOUCH THE BBQ. We can go back to the truck, throw some meat on the BBQ, cook it for a few minutes…come back here.

But of course Henry-the-horrible doesn’t hear in the pitch of female. So I was completely ignored. They took the boat across (instead of the 1km BEAUTIFUL nature trail) and retrieved the bbq.

FINE.

Then there was fishing. And Henry-the-horrible’s incessant bitching about something to do with that.

Then we cooked dinner.

Usually before real camping we buy some porkchops and throw them in a tupperware thing with sliced onions on them as well at salt & pepper…etc. Saturday in my haste to make our new deadline I forgot the salt & pepper. I don’t know how I have been allowed to live, since this is clearly a sin like no other. Henry-the-horrible took one bite of the chop and asked if we remember to bring salt and pepper along. Why no, no we didn’t.

“you didn’t put any on here? I don’t like zat. I don’t eat zat”

And his dinner was finished. He sat in a lawn chair 7 feet away and smoked. Meanwhile I sat near the bbq and fumed. Comtimplated drowning him outright but remained calm. Chris pleaded with me not to murder his father in front of our children.

HOME TIME!

Chris and I took the kids out on the boat and booted around the lake. They had a hoot. I was only moderately successful at hiding my terror.

He dropped us off at the dock, near the truck. Where I noticed parking tickets on the truck and car. I said NOTHING…yet.

After a few trips back and forth to the picnic spot (His woman forgot her shoes so Chris and I went back for them), we started load up the truck. Henry-the-horrible started barking at my Brendan to put his shoes on. Brendan pointed out that he could only find one and Henry growled that he must at least put on that ONE shoe.

I immediately stepped in (possibly peeing on my territory) and told Brendan to forget his shoe and he was more than welcome to drive back with Henry-the-horrible’s woman if he wished it. He did.

Henry-the-horrible? Fumed.

heh.

ok ok…so then he saw the parking tickets and was UTTERLY SHOCKED that he was expected to register and pay before parking his car there and now as a punishment he was a slapped with a $25 fine. Did I point out that I TOLD HIM SO? Hell yeah.

Driving home.

He tells me he think it’s beautful up where we were…I tell him it’s gets even better the further north you go (no that is NOT an oxymoron) and he says oh yes you can get to The Other Town that way. No I say, it’s actually Another Town you can reach back there. NO! He says louder, I SAW A SIGN.

Finally at the top of my lungs I scream at him, YOU HAVE TRAVEL BACK TO THE OTHER HIGHWAY TO GET THERE! YOU DID NOT SEE A SIGN UP HERE!

And Chris quietly adds, “She grew up here eh?”

Almost home.

I whined a little that I am missing blueberry season. And that we won’t get to pick any this year because of the truck.

Chris counters with a suggestion that Henry-the-horrible could come along.

My final words spoken in his truck….

“the don’t sell wine in bottles that big!”