Well, Derby came and went and we had a great time. It was not like the days of old. We had a houseful (and more) but, by my count, it was a little more than 50 "people" (adults) and about 30 kids under the age of 8. No joke.
I took off about noon the day before Derby to finish off preparations. Unfortunately Mother Nature had other plans. Right about the time I left work, the clouds rolled in and the wind kicked up. Undaunted I headed in to Meijer to pick up supplies. By the time I left the biggest drops of rain you can imagine were beginning to pelt down. Naturally I did not have an umbrella. And, naturally, I couldn't find the damned car in the parking lot. And when I did find the car, the bag on top of the cart (imagine the Jobs heading for California and you will have an idea of how much crap I had piled and how high) caught a gust of wind and blew off. Spilling the cherry tomatoes I had just bought for the veggie tray. Crap. Now I have a dilemma. Leave the damned things there or pick them up. What difference does it make. I'm going to wash them anyway, right? And it isn't like I am going back in the effing store to buy more. So there I am, in the parking lot, scraping up cherry tomatoes in the driving rain. These are the lengths I go to to insure a successful party, people. (And for all of you who at the tomatoes: 1) I ate them, too and 2) I washed them thoroughly;3) you get what you pay; 4) alcohol kills most things; and 5) the human immune system is an amazing thing.)
Derby Day did not dawn much better although every one kept saying the bad weather would blow on through by two. Jay spent the balance of the morning stringing a zip line in the back yard with fairy lights. Which were lovely. Of course, at 4, with 90 people arriving in 30 minutes we still did not have the three things that I had asked him to acquire: beer, burgers and buns. Four twenty, people. I am telling you that at 4:20 he showed up with the keg, burgers and buns. Then he headed upstairs for a shower.
Fortunately, the in-laws were here to help with the garden (although I thought I was going to have to wrest the drill from Phillip who was hell-bent on making sure that the hanging baskets were equi-distant from each other. Man, we are shoveling sh*t against the tide, just EYE-ball it.) True to form, though, our friends showed up with more food and alcohol than we needed and proceeded to make themselves at home. Which is what we wanted. We had hoped to have another TV out on the deck but the rain put us way behind on that project. Still, no one really seemed to care. The Inordinatly Large Playset was finished and was HUGE success (I realized earlier today that I don't have a photo of the completed project.) Suffice it to say that there was an assembly line of children climbing up, over and around. Vivian absconded with all of the cups from the keg and organized all of the other children in making terrariums (terrariae ??) There were still kids sliding down at about 10:30. (Honest to God, who do these kids belong to ?) The first people arrived about 4:30. The last left about 12:30. We need to do it again soon. But not TOO soon.
Grandma and Grampy seemed to have a good visit. Griff learned to say something that sounded like "Dampy" which I chose to believe was a combination of "damned" and "Grampy" -- can't imagine where he might have heard that ! The boys really seemed to take to having Grandma and Grampy around.
