marcy will not soon be forgotten

we had one last holiday lunch of sorts with my mother-in-law's extended extended family this weekend. a lot of writers have a rule not to write about their in-laws, and i keep that unspoken rule too. however lance told me i could write about this, and that he would if he had a blog.

i had never been to this annual event before, and lance hadn't been there for years so we really didn't know the people there. we were seated at a table with his grandparents, aunts and uncles, and since we were at the end with the grandparents and no one was talking to them, i took it upon myself to talk to them.

now, this should not be a big deal. and i didn't think it would be, because while there are plenty of things i am not confident about, talking to grandparents is one of my things. you know - i write, i drink milkshakes like nobody's business, i send cards, i talk to grandparents.

i love grandparents. i love old people. and the love is almost always mutual. for as long as i can remember, i have loved talking to grandparents and hearing their stories. where some people get uncomfortable or don't know what to talk about, i can usually find something.

i counted and realized i had only been around that set of lance's grandparents three times before that day (our wedding being one of those times, so that barely counts), so i started asking his grandma the basics about her siblings and where she grew up. she grew up in the same area as my grandma, and knew my grandparents. i L-O-V-E my grandparents and stories or anecdotes about them, or any of my relatives really.

me: "so you knew my grandpa then too?"
her: "oh yeah, i remember ben."
me: "what do you remember about him? what was he like?"
her: "oh i don't know, i don't remember ... why? ... don't you remember him?" (and she LAUGHED at me.)
me: (bewildered, with a side glance at lance who is in hysterical laughter at the situation.) "uh, um, yes ... yes i remember him very well actually, i just, i just like to hear stories about him. about them ..."

LAST TIME I WILL TRY TO MAKE CONVERSATION WITH THAT GRANDMA, PEOPLE.

my gift of grandparent gab apparently has limits. as lance said: "now you see why i have no fond memories with these grandparents."

when dinner was winding down, lance's dad wanted to hold dax and walk around with him. sure.

this lady we'll call marcy came over and introduced herself and started seriously chatting. like instead of just telling us the town where she lived, she went into every last detail but the longitude and latitude. something seemed off. somewhere between finding out she still lives with her parents and when she asked us both how old we were, my hunch was confirmed. then marcy said, "i turned 60 this year, and i'll tell ya what, i don't know where the years went." 

i was so overcome with the giggles - partially because of the pained expression on lance's face - that i could *barely* excuse myself to the bathroom, leaving lance to finish talking to marcy alone.

i returned to see, mercifully, that lance was no longer talking to marcy, but there was now a distinct look of anger and panic on his face. he was walking toward his dad, who was putting dax on the floor. the dirty floor of the crowded restaurant, which i assumed accounted for the look on lance's face.

as it turned out, we'll call her bernice (lance's grandma's sister), wanted to hold dax.

bernice is in her 80s and not necessarily a healthy 80s. dax has always been big for his age, and people in their 20s have been known to not be able to hold him very long. which is whatever, they should probably work out or something, but the point is: we are unsure why lance's dad thought it would be a remotely good idea to try to hand dax to bernice, especially when she was standing.

and when he did, lance said dax just went limp and bernice immediately realized she could not hold him, but when lance's dad tried to take him back he couldn't get him positioned correctly (i don't know, i just, i don't even know) ... so he started to set him on the floor.

that is when i walked in and saw the look on lance's face as he pushed through the crowd to pick up dax. not knowing any of that context until we left and lance explained it to me, i didn't think much of bernice coming up to me to say, "how much does he weigh?" i guessed 25lbs, because i don't know and he was 23lbs awhile ago. "Oh does he really? I buy cat food every week and I can lift that. I thought that was 25lbs but maybe it's not. How much is that? Well, he is heavy!" 

HE IS A BABY, BERNICE. NOT A BAG OF CAT FOOD.

we sort of snuck out after that and someone said, "see you next year!"

mmm, debatable.