Doilies, White Chairs and the Table of Death: Visiting the In-Laws

Now, before I even get started explaining what it is like to venture out to Big Guy's Dad's house to visit him and his wife (heretofore to be known as the FIL and the FIL's wife - have I mentioned before I stink at nicknames), let me be clear they are nice people and great to the mini-me's.  However, I can't help but make some observations on the quirks of their personalities that always make it such an exciting trip to Queens.  Plus they are most definitely not anywhere on the internet reading anything so this will stay just between us chickens.

The visit always consists of three parts.  The first takes place in the house where we make small talk and the mini-me's open any gifts from the most recent holiday or birthday.  The gifts usually go fine (save one humiliating meltdown from the younger when confronted with clothes and not toys) and they move into a back room to play for a bit (there's a bunch of rocks back there that hold their attention for awhile as they've created a pretend restaurant game with them); the small talk is a little more challenging.  Big Guy talks to his Dad most of the time and I chat with the FIL's wife.  She is a lovely, lovely Peruvian woman who is incredibly sweet to me and the girls, but in all honesty, I really can't understand most of what she is saying.  I feel as though I am just one head nod and an "um hmm" away from unknowingly agreeing to go on a seniors' bus trip to the Poconos for outlet shopping and dinner theater.  In the midst of trying to use my useless years of high school and college Spanish (you'd think I would have retained something, anything) I am warding off offers of food while keeping an eye on the clock in preparation for Part Two of the evening:  going out to dinner.  This is not to be impolite but rather to maintain the delicate balance of just enough hunger to survive a restaurant visit with Mini-me the Younger.  Too hungry, and she melts down at the start of the meal; not hungry enough and she wants nothing to do with sitting at the table during the meal and keeping her occupied is a chore.

We go through restaurant phases.  For a while, we went Chinese (always the same place) while we heard raves about a local Peruvian place which we longed to try and which turned into a bit of a joke.  They were always talking about how great it was and then would take us to the Chinese Place.  Why couldn't we go to the Peruvian Restaurant?  Weren't we good enough?  Was a secret membership required?  Oh, Peruvian restaurant how we longed to visit you.  We finally made it (this took some delicate maneuvering on Big Guy's part) and it was really good.  Which was a good thing, because then that's what we got every time we visited, while we heard about a great Columbian Place.  We finally finagled our way to that one; sadly it is not so great and there are no other raves (I think they might just go to these three places) so we are trying to get back to Peruvian.  It is not easy.  We've been stuck in Columbia for a while now.

But the restaurant selection is the easy part of the restaurant adventure.  Each time we go, Big Guy drives, and being kind and considerate he drops us off in front of the restaurant so the five of us can get a table and sit while he finds the elusive Queens parking spot.  Bullshit he is being kind and considerate.  He is conveniently avoiding the chaos that each and every time is the first 15 minutes in the restaurant.  First the table.  No booth in the front - too noisy.  Not too far in the back either.  Preferably a table for eight even though we are only six to allow plenty of room.  Then the seating.  The mini-me's always want to sit by me (yes, yes it's very sweet, whatever).  But this needs to be accomplished within the confines of the FIL's seating requirements which come out as we try each iteration of the seating chart.  How about this?  No head of the table or middle seat.  Ok, mini-me the elder, move here.  No, he would be facing a giant TV. The wife moves a chair and we now have four chairs on one side and two on the other.  Too crowded for him and and just looks dumb to me.  How about if the younger moves here?  No, need to be next to the wife to share.  How about if I move over here?  Okay.  No wait - TV still in view.  Two more chairs moved.

Finally, we are all seated and the waiter (who has started to come over about 10 times and always backs away as we engage in our awkward dance around the table) comes over to take drink orders. This then entails a few minutes back and forth between me and the FIL as I assure him (as I always do) that we can indeed order a drink for Big Guy and some appetizers as he is hoping (expecting!) that they'll be there waiting for him when he arrives from the trials and tribulations of searching for parking.  Meanwhile I'm pretty sure he has found a parking space and is just biding his time, relaxing and listening to the radio to make sure everyone has settled in. No need to arrive too quickly.

We then return to the House for Part Three of the Evening:  Dessert, coffee and closing remarks n  Sometimes we bring something, sometimes they have something, but in any case it is sweet and filled with sugar.  At which point, let me introduce you to: The Doilies, the White Chairs and the Table of Death.  The children (aged 6 and 10) have now been in a Queens apartment, a restaurant and then back to a Queens apartment for a few hours. They have likely had soda or juice with dinner and now sugar for dessert.  They are searching for activities; making pretend soup with rocks has run its course. The apartment's couches are black leather which is very child friendly but draped over all of them are these delicate, white, hand crocheted lace doilies made and mailed with love from a relative in Peru.  The children like to play with them - pretend they are hats, veils, jackets, magic blankets - oh the creativity, which all involves endless touching and draping all over themselves while I twitch and try to get them to move on to something else (what?  I don't know.)   I'd tell them to come sit back down, but the dining room chairs are made of white fabric.  Yes, white *and* fabric.  Extra bonus points when dessert is chocolate cake with raspberry inside.  The wife keeps saying "eet's okay, eet's ok.  Eet will be fine."   Eet will not be fine.  The law of averages tells me the doilies' days are numbered  (stuffing a chocolate blotched doily into my purse is in my future) and the chairs aren't far behind.  I have nowhere to fit them.

And so we come to the table of death.  It's actually been there lurking the whole visit but as they get more cabin fever, it looms larger.  The table of death consists of two giant triangular slabs of marble on top of each other.

Think two of these, 5 feet long each, on top of each other

But wait, as they say, there's more.   They rotate.  That's right - two slabs of marble with three pointy ends each sitting on top of each other, ready to spin at the touch of a little hand.  Or knee. Or head.  If you spin the top one just right, you have six points of death ready to take out an eye or crush a skull.  Keep in mind, this is in the middle of a small living room in an apartment.  Where two kids are beginning to get cabin fever.

That bus trip to the Poconos is starting to look pretty good. Can we leave now?