Father’s Day. Yep. Until joining this family I hadn’t really had to deal with Father’s Day much – it was a holiday that ranked somewhat below Arbor Day in my personal rankings. After marrying into the clan, suddenly I found myself with a father-in-law and a reason to celebrate Father’s Day for the first time since 1968. Instead of simply getting together for a little barbecue or dinner out, though, we have to go to the annual Father’s Day Picnic hosted by my father-in-law’s fraternity (not a college frat, it’s more of a service organization for adult Jewish men).

Welllll, the first year was fun – I ate potluck picnic food, played Frisbee, played softball. The subsequent years have been less and less fun, because really, all there is to do is eat potluck picnic food, play Frisbee, and play softball. And it turns out that all the activities are really to keep the kids busy, plus a few wacky adults, and quite often it was just to hot to do all the running around. So some years we’ve sort of ducked out and gotten together with the ‘rents privately.

Not this year, though. It was Made Clear several weeks in advance that we needed to be there and not duck out.

As Soon As Decently Possible, We All Ducked Out

Strangely enough, none of the grandkids/nieces and nephews of our clan were there this year, because of a scheduling conflict (Middle brother-in-law Dan had duty, my sister-in-law Debbie doesn’t like to drive alone if she’s got all the kids). So when we eventually arrived at the picnic grounds, more than an hour south, we joined David’s parents Shel and Leah, his brother Mitch and Mitch’s wife Gloria, and Gloria’s Aunt Gwen. The usual suspects, that is, for getting together for many adult doings, if Dan and Deb don’t join us with the kids. Which happens sometimes.

So we ate. We watched kids running around with Frisbees and drank sodas. There was a lot of food – so much that there was a lack of table seating, because the buffet set up used up 2-3 picnic tables. We walked around. And sooner than usual, all of us packed up and left. Actually, that part worked out really well – we were helping to move the last few odds and ends from my inlaw’s old townhouse to their new one, because they “moved” yesterday, but the movers were sort of… not thorough in really odd ways.

Which means, they pretty much complained about having to move a lot of what looked like useless junk to them and left a fair number of boxes and containers behind that they wouldn’t move. Problem was, this was Shel’s useless junk, so of course… it had to be moved, so we drove over in caravan from the old place to the new place.

It was kind of scary – following Shel is always an adventure when he knows the way and you don’t, because to him a yellow light on a left turn triggers a Pavlovian stomp on the gas pedal. And as he was hauling a big piece of useless junk plywood in the trunk that stuck out about 6 feet behind, we were supposed to follow with our emergency flashers on, and we nearly got burned at the turn. However, both Mitch and David stomped on the gas and we made it through the light on a technicality.

I bet they loved us on the part of the road that was two-way, single lane each direction.

We eventually got to the new place without causing any accidents (it’s miles from any expressway; we’re not looking forward to the long drives for holiday gatherings). It’s gorgeous, much larger than their old place, and absolutely stuffed full of closet space and storage areas. It’s really, really great and I’m thrilled for them. Just now it looks like it’s been stirred with a stick, but it’s got SO much going for it.

The menfolk geeked out putting together some glass coffee tables and playing with the new phone system. Then we had some roleplay teaching Leah how to deal with Call Waiting and Caller ID, which she’s never had. She did admirably, saying “I don’t have time to talk to you right now, Mitchell is on the other line.” She was a stitch and a half, too – all of us had to reprogram cell phones with the new number, and we had to call to make sure the number was right, so… yep, fun with phones. Not quite as funny as when we were in Salt Lake calling Tudy’s cell phone when she stuck it in her lap to free up her hands for dinner… but funny enough.

We relaxed, we laughed, we played with phones. It was typical family fun. Way better than sitting around at the picnic, with all the brouhaha going on – one of the frat guys seemed to think it was necessary to blow a loud whistle and holler out dining instructions, another one would bellow that there was more chicken ready, and everybody talked in a medium-loud bellow to be heard. It was much nicer hanging out at the new place and making suggestions about decor (Leah’s asking for help, this is not unsolicited). I offered that I didn’t think that Dad’s idea of making a hanging bracket for a stained glass panel out of a big old gate hinge spraypainted gold would look good. He’s convinced it’ll look great. I’m convinced it’ll look like a spraypainted gate hinge, plus it looked like it wasn’t going to be level when he mounted it. I hope Leah can convince him that a nice brass bracket or hook of some kind will look much better.

That’s Mitch reprogramming his phone (and looking seriously pleased about it). He’ll be doing a performance with his improv class at Second City early in August, so we’re hoping to go to that. The other time he took an improv class, he ended up going off on his own with some other refugees from same and putting on a show in a funky little back-room performance space. That became part of the family saga when Leah could clearly be heard on the video Shel was shooting. Yes, she was shushing people (okay, me) for laughing too loud because she couldn’t hear all of Mitch’s lines. It’s the sort of support you want from your mom out in the audience when you’re up trying to make with the funny, isn’t it? Um, no. But it’s funny now, and she knows better this time than to shush people laughing at Mitch.

So it turned out to be a pretty good time – especially since we had the excellent excuse to duck out of the picnic early and go off to have our own fun together.

Oh – and the plywood got stuck in the new garage behind the junky old shelves full of useless junk, and suddenly the new garage looked like the old garage. And the plywood will stay there until the next move, which in their experience is generally every seven years. Maybe I should take a magic marker down next time and date it. Kind of like a time capsule.