Friday, I'm a little put out....

     Since our eldest will be with her in-laws on Thanksgiving and the younger two have a booked a trip to Los Vegas, hubby and I have no kids.  So we decided to call his folks who are usually not included in anything until the last minute and see if we could drive there and celebrate with them.  Then his mom called a week ago and said one of his sisters called and all of her kids would be with in-laws so they were coming also.  Great!  I love my sister- in- law.  A nice quiet dinner 3 couples, we could cook and control the food as Mother-in-law is a terrible cook.  So I called yesterday to say we would be down Wednesday afternoon.  I am told we are all going out to another sister -in-laws place with a ton of people, lots of little kids.  We will eat buffet style on paper plates.

     I have refused to go down for Thanksgiving for years because, you get down there and there are so many people the food is cold or it runs out and they serve it on flimsy paper plates with crappy plastic silver.  Kids everywhere, crying, no place to sit.  No place to sleep.  No blankets, no pillows.  No toilet paper.  I mean just a Zoo.  We usually get a hotel and then we are left out and treated like we are snobs.  But when I have people at my home or know that they are coming, I prepare.
 
     I do not like to eat one of my two really nice meals of the year in rabble.  We would not have agreed to come down if this was the case.  Now if we back out I am a snot.  (I am a snot).  I love my sister-in-laws and I love their kids and grand kids and I would have loved to go out and visit everyone but just let me have a quite dinner with the in-laws. Realize that Hubby married late and we only had the three kids who were born very far apart.  Only one is married and she has one child.  Hub's brother, has 5 kids who have 13 kids. Hub's 2 sisters have a total of 12 kids all with husbands and they have 31 kids.  Do the math.  Chaos!  Now it is a lovely chaos, but not one I want at my Thanksgiving meal.  Okay, okay I am a Grinch I will get over it and quit being a Bit%^.

     Just know if you come to my place for a holiday meal, you will eat on China with crystal and silver.  If you stay I will ask you how many pillows you want on your bed.  Your bathroom will be fully stocked.  If I do put you on cots or airbeds, they will be made up with complete sets of blankets and pillows.  Yes I believe in linens.  Meals will be planned ahead.  You will always sit at a table with dishes.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Paper plates are for camping.  Plastic silver is for lunch boxes.

Okay, okay, okay I am done!

     ND Chic had her baby and I am so happy.  I just wish I could hold the little guy.  Well not so little he came out half grown.  We all need to do a single shower for Rhitter, when she moves out.  How fun!

     I sewed like a demon yesterday and I am still behind.  How can this be? 

Cont:

     I am going to tell you right now that we were spoiled.  Mom was very non confrontational and Sis and I would push her to her limits.  Lil sis was very stubborn.  I think she had to be or Sis and I would have ran her over.  Birth order has a lot to do with personality development.  You can certainly see this in our family.  Sis was just first to do everything.  She was a little bigger and a little stronger.  I just almost always gave her her way.   Now we did fight and argue, but mom forbid arguing or fighting.  I really hated that.  If she would just let us duke it out it would have been so much better.  See how I thought as kid?

     My first grade teacher finally realized that I could read and she allowed me to choose my own books and sometimes she let me read those books to the class.  I don't know what Sis's teacher did.  I do know that Sis was in trouble a lot.  She was sent to the principals office.  She told him she did not want to do Mickey Mouse work.  Her exact words.  Mom was furious.  She was a teacher and she did not want bad kids.

     I think I spent most of my first grade year on the sofa sick.  I missed so much school.  So my frustration level was less than Sis's.   We both loved to sing and were very musical.  Sis had an exceptionally loud child's voice.  Mom sang with us constantly.  We both learned our notes on the piano.  F A C E and EGBDF every good boy does fine.  We had worked through the primer books and were into second grade music.  We were learning to cook, bake I should say.  Mom was and still is a famous pastry cook.  Sis and I just helped.  I think we were more independent than other kids our age because we had to be.

     The weather that last year in the Dakotas was fierce.  We had snow that stopped the town.  Drifts were higher than cars and I remember a time when my dad had to go out the second story window onto the slant roof to get on  a snow bank and walk to work as he had to check the boiler.  He broke into a window there to get in.  People really did get snowed in that year. It did not matter how many clothes you put on you were still frozen when you got to school and got home.  We had to wear dresses, but we all wore long underwear, thick tights and snow pants under out dresses and coats.  We would put heavy wool socks over our mary janes and then these thin rubber snow shoes, but they did not keep your feet warm.  It was so cold your sinuses would run and your scarf would freeze to your face.  So cold the small of your back would ache.

     The summer was record hot, mosquitoes the size of small planes.  Wind blew all the time.  The tornado season was awful.  We were woke up night after night and taken to the cellar.  It was scary.  Fargo was hit 3 times and the dorm right down the street was cut in half.  It was Homecoming and all the floats were assembled.  They were made out of napkins pushed into chicken wire.  When we came out of the cellar the neighborhood looked like a fairy land of colored napkins.  We kids loved it!  The adults not so much.  Then it rained what a mess.  One of the tornadoes took out an apartment building and we kids walked over to see it.  There was a baby missing in the rubble and they were looking for it.  Dad came in after the search and he was very upset and shaken.  They had found the little girl and the searchers had ignored her for a while as they thought she was a doll in the rubble.  It was just so sad.   It was also scary.  Tornadoes sound like a freight train.  They are also mesmerizing.  I remember dad climbing out of the cellar to watch the one approach the college, we all crept up the steps, mom was shouting at dad to come in and shut the door, but it was like dad was frozen.  I actually think he was.  It took both mom and dad to pull down the doors and secure them.  Dad made us get clear back in the corner of the cellar in case the doors where sucked off.  It was just a bad year for weather.

     Funny that we kids would be playing on the swings at the playground down the street and the tornado horns would go off.  Everything would get really quiet.  No crickets, no birds, we would just silently stop our play and head home to our cellars.  We would listen to our short wave radio and then come out when it was over.  I think the weather and my dads behavior would entice my mom to leave the Dakotas.

    Cont:

     I really must get to work!

Have a great and productive day!

Kim