Barbecue is serious business for some folks. Clandestine circles form around secret sauce recipes, houses are divided over mesquite versus hickory charcoal, and fistfights have been know to start over the whole "crackers vs. white bread" controversy. Sometimes, it's not pretty. Take for example, the prelude to our engagement party. We decided to have a few folks over to share a few laughs, nosh on a few burgers, chew the ole fat. Little did we know that violence would erupt between my grandmother's husband and my future father-in-law. There you see Bob at top, throwing up his arms in disgust at Calvin's refusal to baste the burgers with Worcestershire. Calvin is tensing up, as you can see, getting ready to tap Bob in the chest with his A-1 sauce bottle. In the foreground, unsuspecting, Jan, Carol, and Rosalie will shortly have to separate the two combatants as they wrestle for control of the burger flipper. Yup -- it's all part of a Heaton\Bohner barbecue.
Today was a full day -- we had to finish up our preparations for the big engagement shindig on Sunday and pick up my parents at the airport. We tried to get a good start, eating a couple of the six dozen croissants we'd bought from Costco the day before. Thoroughly nourished, we packed a couple more croissants into Otto and headed down the hill to Fresno to get a haircut, pick up the food for tomorrow from the caterer and, finally, meet my folks at the airport.
Things started out well -- whenever you go to the mall in Fresno on a Saturday, things can't be all that bad. Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not all that sure things can get worse than the mall in Fresno on a Saturday. Facing our fears head-on, we stared down the nightmare and entered, ready for haircuts. I was assigned to a nice young man who told me all about cosmetology school. Apparently, to get his license, this fellow had been to school for 1200 hours. Yes, 1200. "It's so we can detect all the diseases on your head, and stuff," he reassured me. "But I don't see why a skilled professional only gets a quarter over minimum wage. That's just not right. It makes me sooo mad!"
Not wanting to take the time to explain his predicament to him while he was holding buzzing shears over my noggin, I just nodded my mute empathy for his plight. "Yep, man," that nod said. "You deserve better." I really liked this hairdresser -- he wouldn't stop talking about his life story. This made it completely unneccesary for me to ever talk. I didn't even need to nod -- he just kept flowing and flowing, freestyling his riffs on beauty school, the cost of living in San Diego, and unfair employment practices right on through the blow dry. This, apparently, was in marked contrast to Kristanne's hairdresser, who felt it necessary to cut only one hair at a time, remarking at each snip of the scissors, "now does that look ok, honey?" 45 minutes later, Kristanne was done, and we headed to pick up our catered food at the House of Kebab.
"House of Kebab." Sounds friendly, doesn't it? The kind of folks you can trust, right? That's what we thought, too. That's why we had ordered 60 shish-kebabs to be ready for pick-up at 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, thank you very much. When we went in to pick up these kebabs, though, we were met with a rather rude surprise -- our unfilled order hanging from a rack in the kitchen. The cook hadn't even started, the cashier hadn't noticed the order, and everybody seemed unmoved by our plight. "20 minutes, no problem," said the cook. "B.S.," thought Kristanne and I, heading to the airport to meet my folks, more than a little peeved.
Gotta get in a good mood. Folks are coming, gotta be happy. Oh crud -- the plane's delayed...what next? I started pacing, more than a little frustrated. Where the heck are they? I headed back to the lobby to see if there was a different flight that my parents might be on -- I didn't have an airline or flight number, only an arrival time. Naturally enough, as I came back to the terminal, I spotted Kristanne hugging my mother and father. What I didn't see at first was this crazy woman coming at me down the hallway, refusing to get out of my way. Finally, she jumped right in front of me, Extreme Hand Gestures blazing. "Ain't you those Extreme Telecommuters," she said. "Aren't you famous, or something?" Say what? Who the heck was this? Had our message for the masses penetrated the Fresno consciousness?
Well, no. It was actually my aunt, Extreme Fellow Traveller Jan! And close behind her, who's that? Omigosh -- that's April and Walt! And my sister, Stephanie, and nephew, Marcus! And, there, who's that...no way! There's Carol! And my Grandma and Bob! This is incredible!
My mood went from slightly peeved to incredibly happy in the space of 10 seconds. I'd only been expecting my mother and father for the big Engagement Party. I had pictured 54 folks from Kristanne's side of the family staring down me, mom, dad, and whatever friends from the Bay Area that might make it down...scary. And now, the cavalry had arrived. We were ready to party! It turns out that my mom had been doing yeoman labor behind the scenes to get folks up for the party and this was the result -- a surprise arrival of much-loved friends and family. The kicker was that Carol, Jan, Grandma, and Bob had all been in the airport with us, waiting for my parents' plane to arrive. They had been hiding behind counters, spying on me and Kristanne as we waited. Carol was even giving status reports -- "Finally, he's put his arm around her. And she looks cuuute!"
After a stop at the liquor store (it was a long flight), we checked everybody in at their hotel. Since everybody wanted to swim, we left them there and headed back up the hill to get a BBQ ready for them at the rented cabin once they were done with the pool. It turns out that Rosalie and Calvin had known all along -- hence their seeming overshopping at Costco was all part of a master plan. We'd need those six dozen croissants, after all. The peach pie, too.
We all had a great barbecue together, despite Calvin and Bob's minor BBQ contretemps, but it was over all too soon. The main event, after all, was still coming up tomorrow. So, everybody except Steph and Marcus headed back down the hill, leaving the rest of us to sleep in preparation for tomorrow's festivities. Check in tomorrow as we feature the Engagement Party in all its splendor! We even promise to have a few more pictures...the digital camera's getting a little dusty, or something.
Total Miles for 8/9 = 110