L'Shana Tova

To all my Jewish readers, I hope you all had a wonderful New Year and are prepping up for the big Yom Kippur fast - pregnant women aside - Friday night.

Did you end up going to family for dinner Wednesday night? Thursday night? Was it ok? Check out what happened to us...

Wednesday night, dinner at my wife's Grandfather's condo. Dinner called for 6:00pm, why? because we have 2 children who go to bed at 7:30 and we hate having to put them to sleep there, or having cranky kids crying and being very unhappy. While not that unreasonable, the moving of dinner time from 7:30 to 6:00 did not happen because "we" had kids, but rather because her cousin (the oldest grandchild) had a daughter and since she thinks dinner should be earlier too, it was changed. We all win.

So we arrived Wednesday night just past 6pm, and there were already a few people there, and almost everyone else showed up before 6:15 so we were ready to eat, except that my wife's Aunt had not showed up yet and we decided to wait for her. UM's Aunt has 2 children and no grandchildren, so I think the concept of eating early for the sake of the children is lost on her. She is a very dominant personality who knows pretty much everything and is not afraid to tell everyone just that. Remind me one day to post why her daughter does not talk to us... something about getting married 3 weeks before her... 6 years ago... Something about "stealing her thunder". I know. Childish, eh?

So while waiting - now 6:45, UM decides to feed the kids and has plenty of help from my mother and sister, and her mother and father. The kids eat, and play. One of the big toy attractions is a wooden Rosh Hashanah play set that UM bought for the kids which possesses among other things, 2 wooden round challah breads which the Happy Boy loves to carry around with him. How is this relevant... read on...

So it's is now 7:10 and the kids are getting cranky and so are the adults... No sign of UM's Aunt and there are 16 other people waiting to start.. dinner was, after all, called for 6:00. So we decided that we need to start and when they show up they can join us... I'm sure they'll understand, right? They are over an hour late and there are kids waiting to eat.. No problem right?

Read on...

So we all get to the table and are set to begin when we realize that we have no challahs - you see her Aunt was bringing the challahs. So while UM's grandfather reluctantly agrees to begin, he sees that everyone is smiling and laughing and having fun and ready to go, so he spots the 2 wooden challahs in front of the Happy Boy and he invites my son and his 2 wooden challahs up to the front of the table to have a prayer made over the bread so we can begin. Together great-grandfather and great-grandson make the prayers over the challah's and smiling and laughing, they share a moment and we are ready to eat.

First comes the chopped liver and gefilte fish, then comes the soup... But as the soup is being served, guess who comes into the condo... without the challahs, and PISSED OFF.

She walked in with her husband (puppet), daughter and son-in-law, and housekeeper, and without even an apology for being over an hour-and-fifteen minutes late, but instead bitching and moaning about not having seats saved for herself - you know, she's 61 years old, has been coming to dinner for 61 years, and how dare we not leave her a seat, blah, blah, blah... at this exact time, the Baby freaks out and UM takes him to walk and feed him in hopes he'll clam down and we can stay and, you know, eat dinner. She passes her Aunt and says to her - in a probably pissed off tone - that she can have her seat because now she needs to take care of the baby, when her Aunt loses it. She comes at my wife yelling and screaming at her - something about her shit not stinking and how important she is... My wife, never backing away, but trying to step away, tells her Aunt that it was not her decision to begin eating, but everyone decision, you know being that there were 16 other people she left waiting. So her Aunt, still with no apology in sight, walks away, mumbles to her family and they sit beside the rest of the family at a small round table (how embarrassing, eh?) take all the bottles of wine - including the bottle my mother brought - open them up and start eating and drinking without talking to anyone. They ignore the rest of the family, are rude to everyone else and quite frankly ruined what was shaping up to be a fun evening.

Our kids lasted only 1/2 more, so we left, without eating more than appetizer and soup - and I so badly wanted to go give her Aunt a piece of my mind.. selfish bitch. But I declined... it is the new year after all and I want to be inscribed in the book of life... yadda yadda.

So our new years starts in a unique way. I despise her Aunt and her family and their holier-than-thou attitude. They ruined our evening while at the same time showing the rest of the family what asses they are. so I guess it was a good evening after all.

I apologized to my mother and sister for their behaviour... like making tea for everyone but not offering it to my mother and sister long after we left.

Bad things come to bad people... wait, they already a miserable, unhappy people without kids/grand kids... now the rest of the family hates them... it does work...


The rest of the holiday was AWESOME... good food, good fun, good family.

:)

L'Shana Tova.