Excellente

Back from Florida again. You might be asking “How can she possibly complain about her budget?” Good question.

What do you get when you mix 2 second graders, a tween, a teen, 3 college/grad students, 5 forty-somethings (some soon to be in the next category), 2 middle-agers, and 2 seniors?

Fun.

Fun, that is, if you can accept and ride the wave of chaos.

Getting even a subset of this group to go anywhere in the same direction at the same time is always a challenge. Lunch one day was our own version of an Abbott and Costello Who’s on First skit. When we are all on cell phones texting “Let’s have lunch here,” very few of us actually share the same definition of “here”. Our plan was to go to the beach that day. We got there at 2.

Dinners can also be eventful.  Desired dinner times for the group seem to be neatly distributed along a bell curve that correspond to our ages. The little kids and seniors want early. The forty-somethings want late. Behavior at restaurants is also correlated to age. When the kids were babies, my mother use to worry about them bothering the neighboring diners. Now she worries about the forty-somethings bothering them.  Austin foolishly ignored the polite observation by the waitress that he might be ordering too much food.  Matt (brother, as opposed to brother-in-law) almost starting crying over the disappearance of the wings.  Matt (brother-in-law, as opposed to brother) tried to communicate with the waiters in Italian even though neither he nor they were Italian.

There was a communication gap between the age groups in addition to the one between the non-Italians. In the telling of one story, Dave (husband, as opposed to brother or nephew) repeatedly stated he was no Marcus Welby.  Repeatedly.  Meagan (daughter, as opposed to bonus Megan) finally asked, “Who is Marcus Welby?”  Side note:  There are also two Ambers, but, surprisingly enough, duplicate names haven’t noticeably added to the chaos over the years.

How is it possible to spend a week with this group and still feel like you didn’t get enough time with them?

I can’t wait for the next wave of chaos when I hope all members can be present.  It was excellente.