The Anniversary Weekend (including bloopers)

Michael and I had a lovely weekend together at the B&B. Since there was no one else renting the other room, we had the whole house to ourselves for 2 days. (The owner leaves breakfast-y items for guests in the kitchen and assumes we can take care of ourselves in that regard.) Waiting for us in the foyer of the (unlocked) house when we arrived was a bottle of wine, a cooler full of cheese, crackers, the yummiest cookies and other snacks, a dainty bouquet of flowers and a beautiful card, all placed there earlier by my father. It was so nice of he and my mother to put this together for us. (My parents were the heroes of the weekend. They did this, watched our children, and bought us tickets to a mystery dinner theater-- more on that later.) Michael and I rented bikes on Saturday and took a 15 mile ride, which might seem like very little to some, but I have not been on a bike since before I got pregnant with Kindred, so this was a big deal. We ate pizza, watched movies, talked and laughed together. Sometimes he would mention missing the children, and this would catch me off guard. "We have kids?" I would ask, shocked? (I'm actually pretty serious about this. Might be the clearest indication that I needed a little break.)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, those phantom kids of mine were having themselves a great time, adventuring in the woods, playing in the park, sleeping in and being gluttons. I'm sure they wore Grammie and Pappap out.

On Sunday, Gram (my grandmother-- she's 94) came over. During her visit she taught Kindred how to do the church and steeple game. I'm proud of Kindred for letting her teach him. He is usually a little frightened by her because she can't hear very well so she tends to sort-of squeal at the kids in this very high pitch. I guess she thinks that's best for the kids to hear her since it's the best way for her to hear herself. It's so unlike how she acts every other minute. She is one of the most together women I know. I want my boys to get to know her, but I can't get them past the voice. Kindred took a deep breath and approached her, and loved his lesson.

Kindred also got a haircut. (Thanks Grammie!)

Elias did not get a haircut. (Grammie gets points for trying and eventually valuing his brain and ears and eyes over the option of short hair.)

The boys are very sad. They miss Grammie and Pappap and Uncle Mike very much already.

Ok, now for the bloopers of the weekend.

My folks live in not-quite rural, not-quite suburban western PA. They'd heard that the mystery dinner theater at the restaurant/bar/diner/banquet hall down the road was pretty good, so they bought us tickets, arranged special vegetarian fare, and sent us on our way, all of us with our fingers crossed just a little. Michael remarked that he really wanted to just be in the audience. He didn't want to play any roles if the play was interactive. He didn't want to win any prizes. He wanted to blend.

Then he wore this:

The ultimate "blend right in shirt", right? For a much duller town, perhaps. Needless to say, he did not get his heart's desire. Within minutes, the actors honed in on him in the audience of 40 people. He didn't give much to the first character, tried to refrain from witty exchanges with the second couple, and just lost it with the third. When he returned from a run to the bar for drinks, waiting for him at the table was an actor holding a laminated portion of the script with his lines and a hat for his head.

Did not blend.

So after he played his role and the mystery was unfolding, we got to the part where everyone in the audience gets a chance to fill in a ballot on who they think "dunnit." Then the actors acted out the rest of the show, revealing all the perpetrators.

Would'ja guess who won? Yep. My husband. He got the right character the right reason why. Can you imagine the irony when they were announcing his win and giving him his prize: 2 tickets to the next mystery theater show. (Back atcha, mom and dad!) All in all, it was a fun time, and my parents have promised to win too so that we can go again.

On to the second blooper of the weekend. My father-in-law (aka Ffil) recently returned to the Holy Land for a trip and brought me back a package of mud from the Dead Sea. Like, cosmetic body mud. It supposedly treats your skin like gold, healing it, refreshing it. The directions say to heat it up in the microwave for a few minutes, spread a thick layer over your body and let it dry for 15-20 minutes. After it's dry, you're supposed to rinse it off in warm water and feel invigorated.

I thought since Michael and I were alone with some time on our hands, it might be nice to slap some of this stuff on my body after our bike ride. I invited his help and we headed to the small bathroom on the second floor of the B&B. He assisted me with my mud coating (a process which was probably more gross than sensual for him, and just goofy for me) and jumped in the shower while I stood stark still in the bathroom, waiting to dry up, looking like Mysti'que. (**Author's note, added later: I had originally linked to a picture of this well-known character from the xmen, but I got over 700 hits in a week because people searching for images of this actor and got sent to my blog. It was my most popular moment since the simple way fire, but I didn't think it was an appropriate link to keep up.)

After a few minutes of him remarking to me about what a great shower he was having while I'm wiping muddy streaks off anything I accidentally bumped, he says, "Um, you aren't going to like what I'm about to tell you." I braced myself for the worst. "You know how some houses just have little tiny hot water tanks?"

Oh, you are KIDDING!

Nope. Not kidding. Michael exited immediately, and I took a deep breath and talked myself into taking a lukewarm shower. But the water gushing from the faucet by that time was not slightly lukewarm. It was cold. Really cold. I couldn't do it. I wailed. Here I am, covered in mud from head to toe, unable to even sit down because there's mud on my butt, having to wait "maybe an hour?" he says, so that I can get water warm enough to rinse off. What kind of vacation is this??

Michael went downstairs and started micro-waving water and running the coffee maker without coffee. I gave the faucet ten minutes while I stood in the empty tub, dripping brown, then I turned it on to check its progress. I plugged the drain and let the water fill to my ankles, but the hot water only lasted until I counted to seven. I had only rinsed my feet when I noticed the color of the water I was standing in. It was as if I had decided to go out into a field after it had rained for 2 days straight and bathe in a puddle. Striking similarities in temperature and hue, I'm sure. Michael came up shortly and added his handmade hot water (about 15 cups) to my tub supply. I splashed around to get some of the grime off of my body. I was convinced I was starting to get itchy and that my skin was changing color. The bathroom smelled like a combination of the beach and a swamp. I felt like a swamp woman. This was not, I concluded, the way I had hoped the afternoon to have gone.

After a little while longer, I decided that I could not sit in nasty water for another 45 minutes. I put one of the B&B towels where I could reach it and surmised that I would rinse as much as I could in seven seconds and then dry off, filthying a towel, then put on my pajamas so that I could at least sit down somewhere while I waited. But fate was pulling for me, because after I'd waited a mere 20 minutes, the shower blessed me with so much more than seven seconds. I got a full five-minute blazin' hot shower while I squealed and squawked about that shower winning the "Best five minutes of my life, so far" award. Invigorating, indeed. Thanks, Ffil.

That's all the adventures I'm sharing tonight.