I heart my in-laws!

Well folks, we are back from the spreading of the ashes of the guy we never met, and let me tell you…its been a long strange trip. Do you know what is worse than not have internet in the mountains? Having constant live blog fodder and being powerless to blog. Ah well, at least I can offer you a retrospective in dashes:

- We stayed with gill’s aunt M and Uncle J. Aunt M did not seem happy to meet me but did tell me soon after to ignore the mess because “we might not be clean here but we are happy” (it really wasn’t that dirty at all)
- Her words actually made the whole stale cigarette smoke/really strong cat piss smell seem more pleasant than it normally would have been. Im not joking. (I think it only smells that way because they have three cats)
- Apparently, it is not customary in the clan of Gill to offer food or drink to anyone over the age of five, no matter how long you are planning on staying. Food is served at meal times but nobody offered me beer ever. I got one beer all weekend. The gill clan is totally a byob clan.
- Aunt M vacillated between totally awesome and a mean spiteful harridan. As you all know, this is exactly what I look for in a mother figure so I was right at home.
- Until she made me eat a raw onion.
- Yes you read that right.
- She made me eat a raw onion.
- She was like kryptonite to my pickiness powers. Id never experienced anything like it. And correct me if Im wrong faithful readers, but Im pretty sure Ive never wanted to punch a senior citizen before either. So that’s two first for crse right there….
- We slept in the family camper which was parked in the driveway. We shared these accommodations with Gill’s niece and nephew. I had thought it a bit unpleasant the first night as my pillow ratio wasn’t good and there were blanket issues (plus peeing outside).
- I felt particularly at home with the gentlemen who ended up being my Drunk Old Men Posse (DOMP) ( most of gill’s uncles and older male cousins). There were points throughout the trip when I was positive they were the only ones who liked me. (despite the byob crap)
- Turns out the first night was a fucking five star hotel compared to the second night which involved me needing to pee five times, the turnip waking up shrieking for an hour and a half at four am and the foul odor of sauerkraut that permeated the whole trailer because someone left a used crockpot right outside one of the windows. (I know that makes no sense. The weekend was kind of like that.)
- Gill completely bailed on me Friday and stayed in the camper until 530 with a “headache” leaving me completely alone with a group of people who knew me only as the woman who kept gill away from the family for 13 years. The DOMP spent a good deal of time during the day at some sort of “man club”. I missed them sorely.
- By 530 Friday, the only people being remotely pleasant to me were my father in law and a stinky cousin of gill’s who would have been somewhat attractive if he didn’t have that raging stench.
- Stinky has two iguanas and spent a great deal of time graciously attempting to enlighten me about these fantastic little wonders of nature.
- Im really scared of iguanas now.
- Stinky’s stench (or what gill and I now refer to as “the taint”) lingered in the oddest of places. I am still getting whiffs of it here and there. Its very disturbing.
- Kojak and Dolly both came through for me Friday evening. It was nice to have a relatively sober contingency.
- By Saturday I was talking trash playing cards with the DOMP and exchanging addresses and emails.
- I was also getting good gossip from Aunt M and the rest of the girl cousins.
- I developed a full scale loathing for a smarmy rotund man who thankfully was not related to “us” . I was excited to hear everyone secretly dislikes him too!
- The memorial on Saturday consisted of us all walking over to a tree and having the wheelchair bound aunt toss ashes from the dead uncle onto the tree. It was kind of odd because the ashes kept kicking up and she ended up getting them all over her. She did not seem bothered by this.
- I went from being ok with my own uncles to having two totally favorite uncles in law.
- My absolute favorite Uncle patted my ass when I left. He was drunk of course. I took this as a clear symbol that I had been accepted into the tribe.
- How can I not feel at home with anybody (read: my favorite uncle) who sets up a picture like this?