The Outlaws

Last night, I slept like actual shit. It is hot in here in this house. It is hot in the bedroom. There is a ceiling fan, but it literally does not push air as far down as the beds are. It is supposed to have three speeds. It has one. Lies. I woke up repeatedly, and then eventually fell asleep. 

Doug had woken up around 5:30, and went out into the living room. He decided he was awake, made coffee in the 4 cup coffeemaker, drank 3 little pots of coffee, read. At 9 his mom came out and started talking to him. She noticed I was sleeping on top of the covers and Doug said "Yeah, it is hot in there. I was hot, and I know she is hot." His mom seemed amazed at this news. They then talked, and because she's a (quite a bit) hard of hearing, there was a lot of 

Doug: Saying a thing
Her: What?
Doug: Saying the thing louder
Her: Replying
Doug: Saying a thing
Her: What? 

So I just got out of bed. 

Initially we were going to make deviled eggs for the party. Mom fussed at me. She didn't have any eggs (even though we told her this was the plan, she didn't pick any up). Doug said he'd go to the market. There was more fussing. We needed to leave at 12:30 to go to the reunion, and eventually it was just decided (not by agreement, but by giving up) we'd bring watermelon. 

I went to take a shower, and Doug came into the bathroom to tell me he was going to buy the watermelon. 

No one ate the watermelon at the family reunion. I think this thing weighs 30 pounds. We have a whole huge giant motherfucking watermelon now. 

We could have had an empty tray of deviled eggs but no. 

Anyway. We went over to the reunion, it is held in a community center in a nearby township. Very nice facility with a park and huge kitchen. I like the space.  Attendance drops off every year. Doug asked me to check in with each of his cousins to see if they were coming (I have the facebook account, and the cel numbers so. I get to check in). None of them were coming.  His favorite cousin was off to Lake Erie for the weekend with his wife and kids. The other cousins all 3 of them were not available. One of them eloped last weekend and he and his wife were on their trip but came home because her mom died on Thursday. Funeral was today. 

 There is sometimes a large contingency of folks who hang out outside in the pavilion where they drink beer, and they don't come inside except to grab some food to eat. Doug calls this the Alternate Reunion. And it is Frowned Upon if we go out there. FROWNED UPON! So of course the last 2 years Geoff found the Alternate Reunion and made some friends. I go out to see Doug's mom's cousin Kathy who hangs out out there and watches all the little kids on the playground.

This year it is literally a huge deadly heat wave, and it was hot and humid, so they stayed inside, and went out for a beer and came back. And Kathy has Covid. And there were NO little kids at all at the reunion. 

As I said, smaller every year. 

We mostly sat with my brother and sister in law and nephew. I think it is honestly the most I've ever talked to my BIL. We had a couple really good laughs. It was really fun. At least, I thought it was. J and I refer to ourselves as "The Outlaws" instead of the In Laws. We try to assist, make suggestions, help, and we are ALWAYS overruled or shot down. Because J lives here, he doesn't even try any more. He told me he would have liked deviled eggs. But he understood why we brought watermelon. It's because. It's always just because. J and I have similar jobs, so we got to talk shop about design, strategy, "customers," which I don't technically have but you can look at the people I work with and help as customers. 

We played Bingo, which Doug has been calling every year since we lost his dad. He did a great job, and he likes to make jokes "B 9! that's really good news. That's a good one!" 

There are always two shifts of food, a 1pm serving and a 6pm serving. People showed up around 4 in time for the Bingo, and that was actually a lot of fun. Second serving was well attended. All the cousins at Doug's Mom's level were at a table towards the end, all talking and chatting and going through pictures. 

There was a photo of the 1990 reunion - about 150 people in the photo.  I should have taken a picture of the pictures. But I didn't. Doug was not in that photo, I'm not sure where he was the summer of 1990, That's the year we graduated (grad 90, married 91, Jess 92) so we were both probably working our jobs up in Massachusetts, and he missed that one. 

All of the photos are fascinating. There is one from Thanksgiving in probably 1984 of Doug getting food at the buffet line, and his sister standing to his left laughing. 

They aren't very close, and in fact any connection maintained is kind of by my doing. But Doug tells his mom something, and mom immediately tells Diane, and Diane texts me to say "what is going on? Mom said blah blah blah..."

So we know there are some things we don't need to tell Doug's mom. 

Cleanup always goes fast. There are super able bodied people at Doug's mom's level. Then there's like us, the 4 of us, and then our kids at the next cousin level down. Some of them are in their mid to late 20s. And my nephew is 16. 

There is one dog who is always there, Sammy, he's Jack's. I'm not sure who Jack is in the hierarchy of family things. But this is his dog. Everyone loves him. Geoff loves him. I have a wonderful picture of them from a couple years ago that I simply adore. Last year we brought Phineas but he isn't nice with other dogs so. It's hard to have him with. Sammy is the greatest though. He and I had some good cuddle time during the clean up. We sat on the stage together, to keep him from being underfoot. 

I stuck to my no-carb mostly. Before we left to come over Doug bought me a bunch of zero/low carb things when he got the watermelon. I ate before we went, and Doug's mom was confused "There is food there, you know that." Yes. Horrible Delicious Food. 30 kinds of potato and macaroni salad, hot dogs and buns. Fried chicken with crispy coating. Cake. Pie. More pie. 

Which is why I wanted deviled eggs. No. Carbs.

Anyway, I did well with sticking to the no carbs for the most part. We got back here to the house and dropped Doug's mom off, ran to the beer store, got beer and seltzer, and now we're hanging out. They're in the living room and she just watched Broadchurch, which Doug HATED when we tried to watch it a couple years ago. It's one of her favorites. So he got in trouble for talking and interrupting. 

Smart ass that he is.

Pictures below, and digits to follow. 

digits

exercise: Dedicated 10 plus 1. Took myself for a walk after Bingo,  

blood glucose
10am: 176
xpm xxx no pre-dinner reading, I did not have my monitor
10pm: 175 

food
Coffee
Water
avocado diced with lemon & sea salt
goat cheese medallion with sliced pepperoni
"Two Good" yogurt, 5.3 oz cup with peach. New product to me, doug found it at the market when I asked him to bring me back something that wouldn't kill me. yummy! 
1 goat cheese medallion
pepperoni slices
2 hot dogs, no buns
3 pieces of the fried chicken
1 cabbage roll (Doug said it is usually very full of rice + spicy meat, but whoever made these was super light on the rice so. Win)
2 spiked seltzers 
1 ramekin of mixed nuts