I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend. It IS the last holiday until Thanksgiving break, you know. Unless you count Halloween, and I don't, because you really don't get any time off, know what I mean?
Anyway, my Labor Day weekend was, for the most part, almost perfect! I mentioned that I was going to have C, my granddaughter, all weekend. We had the BEST time ever! We painted toe nails, shopped, cooked, and did all kinds of girly things. Plus, Son, as you can see from the picture, agreed to spending the day with us, so I got the best of both worlds. Even though I adore Son, and I secretly wanted a boy the whole time I was pregnant with him, it's really fun to have a little girl around nowadays. Plus, it makes up for the fact that I had yet another really weird dream last night. I dreamt I was "with child." Yes, I know...
It was one of those dreams that was so real that, when I woke up, I had to run down my medical history and convince myself that I really did have a hysterectomy back in 2008. So, unless any of you have seen a star in the East, I won't be having another baby. I.HAVE.NOT seen the star...
On Sunday afternoon, we went back to Warren (see All in the Family.) This time my parents came along, plus one of my sisters-in-law and her fmaily. We had a great time. We played games, caught fish, and did lots of cooking. There was SOME of the regular chopping and burning going on, but no mowers stuck in the mud this time.
There were a few challenging moments for me, however. Hubby bought a charcoal grill to keep at Warren. We do a lot of grilling in our family and decided that a grill would make the Clark Griswold experience at Warren complete. I was all for the purchase. The putting together part was unexpected...
It seemed that Hubby got the grill out of the suburban, placed it on the patio, boxes open, then went fishing with C. We then found out that my niece had to be back in Houston by around 4pm, so we were going to have to eat earlier than Hubby expected. With the baby back ribs marinating, my sis-in-law, E, decided to take matters into her own hands and "we" were going to put the grill together. Guess who part of the "we" was? Yeah, that'd be me...
Now, I am creative in a lot of ways: I'm musical, I'm a good storyteller, but I am NOT mechanical. Look, I'm not even VISUAL. So the news that I have to help put ANYTHING together is never GOOD news. Plus, remember, it's 150 degrees outside. Always a factor...
So, I'm panicking a little, because E is really good at putting things together and she even LIKES to do it. I'm thinking, do I admit to her that I can't even read a map well or just let it be a surprise? I went with the last choice.
Actually, in the beginning it went pretty well. For about the first 5 minutes. Then we realized that the nuts didn't want to go on the screws. I tried about 5 then, finally got a nut to go easily onto its screw. Yay, me!! So, I say, "Hey, this one worked!" Now, I'm a nut put-it-on-er expert. I put screws and nuts in every hole I could find. Even some that weren't supposed to have that kind of screw. So, yeah, we had to take a few out. But, my victory would not allow me to be discouraged, and on we trudged.
We had a great system. E would read the instructions, translate into regular English, then tell me what to do (Yes, it was a 3-step process, just like in the remedial class.) After a few minutes my mother-in-law ventures out to see how we're doing. When she sees that no one is bleeding and no one was yelling, she calls for my mother to come on out. Apparently, the coast was clear.
After about 30 minutes, lots of holes had screws in them, but the grill was still in pieces. Along comes E's husband, J. J asked what we're doing. Well, I felt like it was pretty obvious that we were putting a grill together, but maybe not. So, J starts "helping." Uh-huh. Then, after about 15 more minutes, the fish had stopped biting and there was nothing left to burn, so here come ALL the other men. Just what we needed.
So, Hubby comes up and gets his electric drill out, all fancy and everything, AFTER I now have blisters on my fingers from twisting strong-willed nuts onto screws for almost an hour. My job had just been taken over by a machine. Now, we're all "helping" to put together the grill.
After about an hour, here's the scene: E and I are still trying to work our system of her reading the directions and telling me what to do. Except now Hubby and J look at the directions over our shoulders, call out crazy numbers of bit sizes and hand ME the drill to "drill" the nuts on. Yeah...
After another 15 minutes or so, I look up, in between drilling, and see ALL of the parental units sitting on the patio, about 3 feet from us, drinking lemonade, watrching us with in utter amusement. Here we are, sweating like pigs, passing the instructions around, while they gawk.
At one point, Father says, "Well, Baby, I didn't know you could put things together." Uh-huh. I manage to smile sweetly and say, "Oh, yes, Dad, I'm just full of surprises." (I've only been married 4.5 years, my in-laws still think I'm sweet.) Then Father says, "Hey could you hold the drill again? I want to get another picture." Sure, Dad, I want to say; I'll hold the drill. I can do all kinds of things with this drill. But, I just smiled at him with my best "knock it off already" smile and he just laughed his head off. Yeah, real funny...
Anyway, we finally got the dumb grill put together and had our yummy lunch.
My take is that we're always going to find ourselves in those situations that we know are not our forte in life. For me, it's definitely reading maps/instructions and putting things together. I don't care what anyone says, I believe there are just some things that men are still more inclined to do than women. I mean, I can do it if I have to, but I would also jump out of an airplane if I HAD to. That doesn't mean it's on my to-do list.
What's your take?
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