Happy Flippin' Birthday, Urban Dad!

Must not...... do another post..... like the last....... Must not...... make this..... the "bash Val's relatives blog"..... Mustn't........

Ok, I'll try to get through this with minimal editorial comment. But I'm white-knuckling it here!

Urban Dad turns 50 at the end of May. That's one of those birthdays that can't slip by unnoticed, as UD usually likes to do. He's a private guy. Give him a Sara Lee Banana Cake and a quiet night as home, and he's delighted. He's not boring, mind you. Just easy to please and laid-back.

A few weeks ago, I sent an e-mail to two couples that we're friends with. Urban Dad has been friends with the two husbands from way back in his trading days. We gather now and then when our schedules allow to have a leisurely evening of good friends and good wine.

I sent the e-mail suggesting that we gather for a small surprise birthday dinner. I figured that's about as crazy as UD would want to get -- a leisurely evening of good friends and good wine. We traded notes til we found a night that would work and agreed to hold the evening.

Then last night the MIL called.



How to describe the MIL? Let's put it this way. Some of her personality overlaps with Not The Best Namma Ever. Except that she's an alcoholic. A pill-popping, four-times-married alcoholic. With money. I have to borrow a description used by a friend when explaining her own MIL: "she makes (the BritCom) Absolutely Fabulous look like The Cosby Show." I think her MIL and mine should go get a three-martini lunch together.

Her ring-tone on my cell phone is the theme from The Exorcist. Urban Dad knows it and approves. (not an editorial comment, just a fact!)

She wants to bring everyone to Chicago for UD's birthday. The same weekend as the surprise dinner gathering.


Last time his brothers and mom got together, I was 8-mos preggers with Urban Kid 2. Thanksgiving in Colorado. It was a disaster! We were the only married couple that didn't have a claws-out fight. MIL stayed at a hotel the last night when UD couldn't hold his tongue any longer after a weekend of psycho BS. We saw his completely undisciplined niece and nephew more often than his brother and (now ex-) SIL, since we were somehow seen as the fill-in babysitters. The other BIL had to blow into a breathalyzer to start his car. There's so much more, but that's another post. But we packed fast on our last morning and drove like the wind back to Denver Int'l Airport.

Oh yeah, this'll be great. (does that count as editorial comment?)

She wants Urban Dad's Dad to come too. (a sweet wonderful man who lives in NM, remarried after UD's mom and raised four kids)

She wants Best Namma Ever! and Her Husband to come too. I'm not big on Her Husband coming. But I would love BNE! to be there. Pink Power Ranger would love it too. We could have our own three-martini lunch the next day to talk about it all.......

And she suggested our two couple-friends.

Urban Dad put the kabosh on that as soon as we hung up. We're already enclosing ourselves in a cage-fight of people on any possible combination of Oxycontin, Prozac, Xanax, vodka, etc. Add generations of raging dysfunction, two of her three sons jockeying for their inheritance, and a lack of social filters that would shock Borat. We need to subject people we consider friends to an evening of this?

BNE! and PPR don't count. Family that we like gets free abuse points. Besides, this would be their idea of a spectator sport. They'd keep a scorecard under the table. Maybe PPR will bring her Taser if I ask nicely.

So I immediately called our two couple-friends and called off the surprise. Being UD's friends from waaaaay back, they know my MIL and completely understood. I think they were relieved to be asked to have an excuse ready in case she calls them directly.

*SIGH* So much for a leisurely, quiet evening of good friends and good wine.

Besides this development, life really is good right now. Seriously, the only thing that I can complain about won't happen for another month and a half! How good is our life?

Hey, did I mention what UD did while we were in St. Louis last weekend? He scrubbed the apartment from top to bottom. Then he bought flowers and put them all over the place. For the last several days, the smell of lillies has filled the living room. I brush my teeth while looking at daffodils. There are tulips in the UKids' room. Crazy cool, huh?

A diamond in the rough, that Urban Dad.