1 Response to Happy Gloucester Family Fun Time

1. circuskitchen says:

   2019/06/21 at 8:46 am

   Thursday, June 13th 2019

   Because my gig was rained out, I was able to join the family for a journey to visit Liz at her new place in Gloucester.  Before we leave, young Zachary lovingly bows out for some  teenage reason.  We call Liz on the way and she is surprised we are coming.  She gets our ETA.   When we arrive she is not there, just the dogs.  Then we find out Olivia is *about* to take a train from Boston to join us.  While waiting, a drunk neighbor shows up to complain about Liz’s dogs shitting on his lawn.  She says a few words about not letting them loose and then I watch them run back and forth from the back yard to the street all they want.  My husband is pressed into moving an enormous fish tank that is empty except for a couple of crickets.  Apparently there had been a lizard; I didn’t ask.  After waiting around we go out to dinner wherein we completely ignore the fact Olivia and Gavin just graduated, and celebrating Liz’s upcoming birthday instead.  She sends her steak back THREE times (too cooked, too raw, and “it needs to be cooked properly,”), making sure to send the waitress into the kitchen an EXTRA time just to tell the chef that this steak is not a “strip” as specified, “it’s a ribeye!”   All I can think of (besides the embarrassment) is the (cows and) environmental resources that go into the hubris of this kind of dinner, so I just hunker over my plate during these exchanges shoving salad into my face to hide my shame and avoid eye contact.  Liz’s wonderful boyfriend joins the festivities (on his actual birthday no less) for precisely as long as his four year old son is willing to let him (not very).  Dear Pops pours ALL of his strength and effort into these outings; flying here from Minnesota, renting a car, piling us all in it, driving us through the rain, elbowing the minivan into highway lanes whether occupied or not, taking us out to the nicest restaurant Liz can choose, trying to facilitate civil conversation amongst everyone’s total lack of focus, and then paying the bill, driving us all home, and flying himself back home the next day.  He’s 86.

   Also not asked:  Where is the cat?  And, to clarify; she now lives in Gloucester, but wants to buy another house in Ipswich so her son -who’s dad wants to send him to England- can go to high school in Manchester?   And if you own so many houses why is daddy still making your car payments?  IDK.  Happy Birthday.

   Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required) (Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Notify me of new comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.

Δ