why I stayed home this weekend

It all started innocently enough. Every year we empty the truck and head down to the Jacksonville yard sales. Always the same time of year, always the same plan. We spend friday night near town, wake up, hit the yard sales (see previous posts) have breakfast with friends and family at the Mustard Seed, and after it is all said and done, head up-river to have Bob's birthday dinner at his place. A five or six or seven year tradition, and given that he's seventy two or three, its been going on for some time.

This year, it didn't go off as planned.

The first thing that changed was that there was nowhere for us to stay.

One: My mother-in-law's daughter reserved the cabin for that weekend, the only weekend we always stay there. Pick one of fifty-two.

Two: Kurt's son decided to cook a pig in the ground for the birthday,

Three: and invite a billion people. Well, fifty. He is working to organize this, but my outlaws have no faith in David's ability to roast a pig in an imu without burning down the forest and the adjacent crop, so

Four: my husband is asked to get involved. He cannot say no to his father. So he goes online and finds out how to roast a pig, and shares this with Dave, who seems to have done the same thing. He's got a plan for getting the right kind of rocks (lava) and cornstalks instead of banana leaves, and a chef to help him with the cooking, and all the kids to bring different food for the luau. David isn't the problem. Neither is his grandfather. From my POV its his wife. No love lost there. So, as David is trying to get this thing together for his grandfather, she is running ahead of him mucking it up, telling people to bring different things, planning a big breakfast and a dinner the night before, but she'll have her daughter to help her out. Like martyr like dartyr.

Five: Johann says we can use his cabin. Johann builds huge temporary shelters for raves and for Burning Man and lives next door. But there are no cooking facilities and I can't find out if the dogs can stay there, so

Six: My husband says we'll just stay in the back of the pickup. Johann is a german hippie who usually has three or four naked young women hanging around.

Seven: The girls are going with us, (a happy thing) and David's best friend Cody is hitching a ride, but we have to wait for him to get off work until about six, which will put us there at eleven at night. He has AIDS, which is sad but fine with us, but bringing him around the clan is like bringing a vial of live ebola virus. He won't be welcome and we'll be the assholes who brought him.

So by Thursday night, here's how its looking to me: Its 100 degrees in the Rogue Valley, we have nowhere to stay except with Johann and the naked girls or in the back of our truck with two dogs, Nicole, Haley and Cody, which will be fine becasue my husband will be up all night either a.) building and guarding the bonfire, or b.) putting out a forest fire, or c.) explaining to the rangers who are taking us all to jail why we shouldn't be arrested for growing marijuana and burning down the forest, all the while we listen to Patricia cackle about why David should never have tried to roast a pig.

So, you may ask, what about the yard sales?

Well that's what I said.

So I stayed home.