Sunday, February 27, 2011

The aftermath

How many teaspoons can two grown adults use in barely 24 hours?

If you're my in-laws, the answer is 16. SIXTEEN. Considering that their menu consisted of chicken nuggets, tater tots, and Hamburger Helper, I have no idea how they used that many spoons.

Monkey Man has decided that they suck because they apparently ate all his Chewy Chips Ahoy cookies last night after he went to bed.

Rufus thinks they suck because they wouldn't give him any table scraps and my father-in-law is always trying to pet him. At this point, I think Rufus enjoys torturing my father-in-law by sitting *just* beyond his reach and then scooting away as my father-in-law inches closer. He doesn't move very quickly so it gives Rufus ample opportunity to scootch a few inches and then look back with a shit-eating grin.

*****

The wine expo was fun, but damn was it crowded. We noticed a definite lack in staffing at each of the booths, so the people weren't flowing through the expo as smoothly as they did last year. After about four hours fighting the crowds only to get small sips of wine, we ended up back at the hotel bar having drinks and a few appetizers. I think next year we'll try the Friday night event - the cost is steep, but the crowd is much smaller and you actually get to taste the wine versus standing in a crowd 20-deep and hoping to get a small dribble in your glass.

We met downstairs in the lobby to go out to dinner and soon discovered that a new sport could be "Drunk Walking Through the Marriott Lobby". The women were hilarious...teetering dangerously in heels, usually carrying a few boxes of wine and they would teeter dangerously as they wove toward the elevators. Watch out for that.....corner.....aw, another one down!

Dinner at Juleps was amazing as usual. We took a short walk down to Havana '59 for a nightcap and ended up back at the hotel just in time to catch the Hokies' upset of #1 Duke. There were a lot of happy and unhappy people in the hotel bar. We ended up heading to the room with plans of an early checkout so we could get home at a decent hour.

Sleep was elusive, to say the least. We had a wedding party staying on our hall - they showed up loud and drunk around 11:30 and mercifully only changed clothes and banged doors a few times before they disappeared again. I never heard them come back.

What did happen was the worst case of heartburn and acid reflux ever. The only thing that kept me from throwing up was the thought of losing that wonderful dinner to the sewer system of Richmond. Especially after daydreaming about Bananas Foster for the past two months. Oh, but I was miserable...I think I finally fell into a restful sleep around 4 AM when I configured some pillows to elevate my head and therefore keep the acid located somewhere right above my heart.

As it turned out, I know Joey and our friends Wendi and Gerry also had the same issue last night. Was it mixing the wine and liquor? I thought it was beer then liquor, never sicker...where does wine factor in to all that? Unhhhh.

We got home to find my in-laws ensconced at the kitchen table. Father-in-law was airing out his arm - apparently he fell out of the chair in their living room and banged up his arm and he is allergic to Neosporin, but instead of calling the doctor to see what he could use he proceeded to put his own home remedies all over his arm and made it worse.

Did I ever tell y'all about their dog Odie? Poor Odie was a chocolate lab and the sweetest dog. Well, he got some kind of spot on his tail that I think was probably a spider bite. My father-in-law's mother was some kind of country "doctor" or medicine woman I guess, and she had taught him how to mix up all kinds of salves and stuff to cure everything. He mixed up a batch of this horrid looking yellow gunk and liberally applied it to poor Odie's tail.

His tail fell off, and then Odie died.

I have made Joey swear to me that he will never, EVER let my father-in-law apply any sort of potion, lotion, salve, or cure to anyone in our immediate family.

Odie, dude, I'm sorry you had to take the bullet for the team, but I don't want my tail falling off.

5 comments:

Elizabeth Keene said...

Sorry you got sick. :(

Also, I'm ashamed to have laughed so hard about Odie's passing. :( Sheesh.

Taryn said...

I can't mix wine with anything, esp. not hard liquor! I won't get heartburn, but I'll sure feel like crap the next day!

Poor Odie! It does sound like a spider bite (what with the tail falling off!) and one that needed to be treated by a *real* vet!

Janet said...

Thinking if I need to add an inlaws clause to the puppy contract . . . . .

Becky said...

Thank you for a great start to my day! I will be thinking about the "tail falling off" all day trying to be sympathic during fits of laughter!

Becky said...

Sorry! I may not do well with the sympathetic part since I can't even spell it. Thanks for the laughs!