Sep 20

We had a family reunion on my wife’s father’s side of the family. There were about ten or twelve of them. It was their first ever family reunion. (Half of them don’t speak to the other half. There were two dads, so it was always the older ones against the younger ones.) It didn’t turn out to be the disaster that you might have thought. And, there were plenty of opportunities for it to turn south. One of the older family members did most of the arranging. My wife got drug into it, because she likes throwing parties. She mainly was in charge of contacting everyone and getting them all there. (She gets along with everyone.) She should have been in charge of a little more than that, because… It was supposed to be the primary family, my wife’s dad and his brothers and sisters, were to contribute twenty dollars. That was to be used for a deposit on the park and all of the plates, plastic forks, napkins, hamburgers and hotdogs. Their children and grandchildren were supposed to bring a potluck dish. Well, all of the primary kids pitched in and it was going fine. When the organizer her husband and my wife got to the park, they found that someone else had appropriated the spot they rented. There were table cloths on the tables, balloons, and the grills were chained up. But, no one was there. Our party was reserved from noon to seven. They waited until noon, but no one showed up. So, they started taking the table cloths and stuff off. Seconds later, some people came running up telling them to leave their stuff alone. They said that they had been at the park since seven in the morning and it was their spot. The organizer whipped out their paperwork, but that only enraged the other people even further. It got so bad that they were threatening violence. So, my wife called the police. After that, they grudgingly left and swore to come back and wreck our party because we wrecked theirs. We saw where they set up their stuff, and the police and park rangers went over there. I don’t know what was said, but they didn’t come back. Catastrophe number one averted. We brought soda pop and ice and my son brought water bottles. Some kid with a Mohawk that I didn’t know started cooking the hamburgers while my wife and the organizer set up the tables like a buffet. One of my wife’s sisters brought a fruit salad, another brought cookies, and the other one brought chip salsa. They placed all of that towards the end of the tables as they prepared chaffing pans for the food the other families were bringing. As people came, we started putting out the chips. We would have put out the food, but the other thirty couples all brought chips. One of them brought ketchup, mustard, and mayo. The fruit salad disappeared almost instantly and everyone else ate hamburgers, hotdogs and chips. It wasn’t what was planned, but everyone got full. Catastrophe number two averted. Halfway through cooking the hamburgers, the gas tank and the hoses leading up to one of the grills caught fire. It took a while for everyone to get it put out. It didn’t explode, so catastrophe number three was averted. I really didn’t know anyone, so I played volleyball and kickball and catch with the football. Everyone took about a thousand pictures and I only had to be in a few. As the day progressed, no one got in a fight and everyone seemed to have a good time. No fighting was the last hurtle. Like always, as soon as it was time to start cleaning up, everyone suddenly had to leave. But, it didn’t take us that long. There were only two of us that brought a lot of tables, chairs, grills, tents, and ice chests. Me and whoever that other guy was helped each other pack up the trucks while my wife helped clean. The worst thing was that someone decided to face paint early on during the party. My granddaughter and several of the other little kids thought it would be fun to paint the tables. That did take a little bit of cleaning.
While the party was going on, I was also elected to ferry my wife and kids back and forth to the house. They didn’t want to use the bathroom at the park. While doing that, I managed to listen to a lot of the Rockies game. It wasn’t televised, so I would have had to watch it on the computer or listen to it on the radio anyway. I didn’t get to hear the ending, but in the ninth, it was twelve to nothing. Yep, I was happy. Over the weekend, we moved to within one game of first place. Then, we lost on Sunday. We’re two games out right now, but we didn’t play today. We’re up against the Diamondbacks tomorrow. All of the games in our division are late ones, so it’s going to be an exciting next few days. There are only thirteen games left and it’s coming down to the wire.
The Broncos won today against the Sea Hawks. It was an upset victory. After last week when Seattle beat up on the 49ers, everyone thought that they were going to be a really tough team to beat. We got three or four interceptions off of them, and they even flubbed a kickoff. I won’t say it was an easy win. But we were firing on all cylinders. Our next four games are going to be tough. We’re playing the Colts next. That’s the one I was supposed to have tickets for. But, with the mess up, I have tickets for the Chargers game at the end of the season. Watching the Broncos this week was difficult because it was playing at the same time as the Rockies game. I had to switch channels back and forth to keep up with both games. That’s the only bad thing about the end of the baseball season and the beginning of the football season. They need to start baseball earlier so that it can end before football’s regular season starts. They could play during pre-season football. That would be all right.
Taking Thursday off was a bad mistake. I didn’t get a chance to work on chapter 36 on Friday or the weekend at all. I usually can’t do anything on the weekends. My wife and the kids keep me pretty busy. But I lost four days instead of two. So, I really need to do some make up. 36 is almost done. I’m going to whip that out tonight and get started on 37. Today’s the twentieth. That only gives me eleven days to completely finish if I want to meet my personal deadline. I don’t think that’s going to happen.
-Thom