Shower of Love and Crazy

I think Jeremy's birthday has made me a bit nostalgic. The story you're about to read is an actual, real account of what happened at his baby shower. I know that you might be tempted to question it's veracity, but I assure you, it did really happen.

I don't have a lot of extended family and neither does Brian. I am very close to my parents (always have been); he is close to his mom but estranged from his dad. We both have one sibling and a smattering of random aunts, uncles and cousins. For our wedding, I did invite some of my relatives living in Mexico, but it was too expensive for them to travel. I am not close enough with them to have extended an invitation to my baby shower.

I will say, Brian and I have quite a few friends. They come in all shapes, sizes, ages, etc. I had 8 bridesmaids for our wedding. I probably could have had a few more, but Brian was complaining that he would have to start pulling homeless guys off the street. The wedding party was beautiful but diverse. There are reasons for the diversity, but this the not the forum to divulge those reasons. Suffice it to say, I have friends who are 5 years younger than I, 10 years older than I, 20 years older than I. It gets a bit sticky to introduce some of them so typically I say we all met at church.

At the time of the shower, both of my grandmas were alive and in attendance at my shower. Some might see this as warm and fuzzy; I assure you, I did not. My grandmas are more prickly than fuzzy and both are a bit crazy. My maternal grandmother is banned from visiting my parent's home because she picks fights with everyone and is generally mean-spirited. My paternal grandmother, who passed away when Jeremy was very young, was also prickly. I spent a lot more time with her, Isabel, than I did with Ann, my mom's mom. Isabel babysat me for a while after my mom gave birth and had to return to work. She was responsible for potty training me, made homemade flour tortillas, danced with me and had more "grandma" type memories with me.

I only saw Ann a couple of times a year growing up. We are both pig-headed, stubborn and emotional. I would go out early to Pennsylvania to visit her on my own before my parents came to visit. I would fly there and then drive home with my parents. As soon as my mom and dad would arrive, my grandma would sit down with my mom and read her the laundry list of ways I had angered and/or disappointed her. My mom and her grandmother, Nellie, were always very close. My mom wanted me to have the relationship with Ann that she had with Nellie, but that just never came to fruition. Ann and Earl (my grandfather) ran a business for many years and I think she was successful because she was a bit cold. I'm not saying that to dig at her, I'm just saying that successful businesspeople have to have a bit of ice in their veins.

I'll give two examples to demonstrate. First, one time I visited Ann and things were going fine until the third or fourth day I was there. That's when she started laying into me about the things I had done wrong. (I should mention, she is the woman who made disparaging remarks about my weight while I was four months pregnant with Bekah. My weight has always been an issue for her, she has always been critical of me and we only get along for hours at a time.) One of the offenses was that, when I de-planed, I greeted my grandfather first. She claims that I saw her, but ignored her and greeted my grandfather first. My hand to God, I saw him first. I was not trying to slight her or diminish her at all; I simply laid eyes on Earl first.

The second instance I'll share happened on another trip out there. I was staying with her and my uncle at their home in the country (the business they ran was a hotel of sorts--they maintained an actual residence just outside of Grove City). I woke up early one morning and decided to go for a walk. They have quite a bit of acreage that abuts a farm--I wanted to just stretch my legs a bit. When I returned, she raged at me for about half an hour about how rude I was for doing that. I was 12 at the time and couldn't, for the life of me, figure out what I had done wrong. (At 34 I'm also baffled.)

I say all of this to demonstrate that there's a fair amount of crazy on my side of the family. Brian's family, well, they are lovely people but crazy abounds there as well. He is estranged from his dad, but his dad's brother Rick (who just recently passed away) stepped in and acted almost as a father for Brian. He and Sharon, his wife, worked very hard to be a part of our wedding and also our baby shower. Rick was very angry at Mike, Brian's dad, for not staying for the reception. Mike's reason for leaving? He had to attend Bible study and couldn't possibly stay. (Mike also didn't like the fact that Brian was getting married in the first place.)

Overall, Rick and Sharon are the nicest people you'd ever want to meet. On several occasions they had us up to see them in Muskegon, Michigan. Rick paid for him, me and my brother-in-law Bill to go charter fishing on Lake Michigan. I had a blast! He would send us small gifts every Christmas and, up until the end, was still trying to patch things up between Mike and Brian.

The one flaw about Rick is that he was stubborn. He liked to think he had it figured out. The day of the shower, he, Sharon, his daughter Cassy and her twin girls were visiting his mom in the south suburbs. Brian gave them detailed instructions on how to travel from there to the shower, which was being held at my parent's house in Crystal Lake. We didn't realize until partway through the shower that he had improvised.

So the shower. A lovely affair, really. I was excited and nervous as a first-time mom. I actually can't stand large gatherings of people, though you wouldn't know it based on the invite lists I compile. I get anxious about where to sit and stand, to whom I should be talking, etc. It was no different on this day. Brian came along for moral support, but he was lucky enough to be able to hide-out upstairs with my dad.

Ann was already at the house (this was before the ban was put in place). Isabel was going to be delivered by my Uncle Adolfo. Meanwhile, I had a lot of ladies arriving. Keep in mind, my friends come in all shapes, sizes and ages. The first sign that the shower was a showcase for crazy was that Ann greeted my friend Dorothy, a retired teacher, as my grandmother Isabel. I was walking out to greet Dorothy and Candace, another friend and I heard Ann behind me saying, "Isabel, it's so good to see you. You remember me, don't you?" (There's a story for another day about a meeting that was supposed to happen at the Drake for high tea but didn't. It became a source of tension between Ann and Isabel.)

To be fair to Ann, she hadn't seen Isabel in several years. She is in her 80s and her vision is not what it once was. To be real, Dorothy and Isabel don't resemble one other and Dorothy and I don't resemble one other. I thought that would have been pretty clear to everyone; apparently, I was wrong.

I really thought that if I wished hard enough, the earth would open up under my feet and swallow me whole. I was mortified and started apologizing profusely. To Dorothy's credit, she played right along with it, took Ann by the arm and walked her inside. I am eternally grateful for friends who don't even skip a beat when confronted with crazy.

Meanwhile, there's no sign of Rick and his entourage. I was starting to get concerned and had Brian call Rick, but there was no answer. We were puzzled as to why it was taking him so long to arrive, but there was more crazy to manage.

Isabel finally arrived and she and Ann settled in on the patio outside to catch up. I wasn't present for this particular crazy, but I am told that they started discussing illnesses and surgeries. In true old-lady style, Isabel  raised her shirt and lowered her skirt a bit (while sitting down) to show Ann a surgical scar. This was while some of my friends were in full view, enjoying a cigarette. Even as I am typing this, I have a tinge of embarrassment. My dad has commented that there are a lot of similarities between toddlers and old people. Neither have a filter when they talk and both are incredibly free with their bodies.

Finally, the time came to play games and open presents. Brian and I were set side-by-side in my mom's living room. We had just begun opening gifts when the front door bangs open, revealing Rick, Sharon, Cassy and the twins. Brian and I were literally in the middle of opening a gift when Rick walked in and plopped a twin on each of our laps. I am not speechless often but this was one of those times. My mouth was agape and there were simply no words. I stole a glance at my friend Carrie and just saw on her face how I must be looking. Her eyes were huge and she and I exchanged glances as if to say, "what the &*$@ just happened?" I had to find her later; she is famous for her reactions to things and I had to rib her a bit about not being able to contain that particular reaction.

I can't honestly remember what happened next. I know Ann and my mom, both Emily Post graduates, were probably also taken aback. I couldn't see my mom from where I was sitting (she was sitting on the other side of Brian). I think, although I'm not sure, that she got up and tried to coax Rick into taking the girls into the kitchen and feeding them. With no twins on our laps, we were able to continue to open gifts. There wasn't even a way to apologize for the interruption; the best way forward was to ignore that anything had happened.

However, the piece de resistance was Ann. I had adjourned to the kitchen and was talking to Sharon. She (since I've known her) has always had acrylic nails, usually with some design on them. They are usually a bit longer but within normal limits. That day, she had American flags on her nails. She and I were sitting at the table, catching up, when Ann bursts upon us and asks her, "how do you scrub your shower with those?" (Keep in mind that Ann is obsessed with cleaning and used to regale us with stories about how inept the cleaning ladies at her hotel were. She has set foot into my house one time and I spent two or three days trying to clean it enough to not give her reason to criticize. She still did.)

I will admit, it was then I really hoped the Earth would swallow me. I had reached the limit of crazy and was not sure I could continue. God bless Sharon, though, she didn't skip a beat. She responded, "I don't," and  continued her conversation with me.

We found out later that Brian had given directions to Rick that include Rt. 31. That's a main drag into Crystal Lake, but that road was late in the directions. Rick saw Rt. 31 while on the south side and figured, "hey, I'll save some time and just take 31 all the way up." No wonder he arrived about 3 hours late to the party. It's a long and circuitous (and indirect) trip from there to here.

There are still times that Brian and I reminisce about the shower. We still can't believe how much crazy our families were able to squeeze into a lovely Saturday afternoon.