The Memorial Day Weekend Boyfriend Extravaganza

For the record...

The weekend was largely a success, somewhat surprisingly. Everyone seemed to like everyone, nobody got shot and awkward moments were minimal. Dad and I started out the weekend a little bit early to take a load of my stuff up to the Vermont house, and to take a quick trip up to Burlington to check out an apartment for me for the couple months I'll be living and working there (starting in less than a week.) That actually was kind of awkward, but it was before any of our house guests arrived. There was a miscommunication between the current tenants and the landlord, and the tenants whose lease starts on Sunday, who I'll be subletting from. I got there (where someone was supposed to be to let me in to look at the apartment) and when no one showed, I rang the bell. A couple minutes later, a raspy-voiced and disheveled kid who looked to be around my age answered the door. So even though the place was a mess and he was mad about getting woken up on a Friday at 10 a.m. by someone to come look at the apartment when he wasn't alerted to this earlier, he showed me. The place was a mess, but I will be living there from around June 1-August 1 this summer while I intern at the newspaper there.

So after Dad and I drove around the UVM campus a little bit, looking for flyers about apartments to sublet, we headed back to the lake to put the boat in the water. We stopped for a quick lunch in Middlebury, and then got back by around 1 to get the boat in the water. By this point, I had heard from the Doddster that he had not left at noon as was planned, because he had spent the entire previous night moving into his new apartment and needed a couple hours of sleep before the 4-hour drive to Vermont. So we got the boat in the water, ordered some pizzas and hung out until around 10 p.m. when he finally arrived. The first meeting was a little bit awkward, considering that both of my parents had fallen asleep and, as Mom put it, 'looked like hell.' But we started the weekend off right with the first few episodes of the third season of The Office. Upon awakening on Saturday morning, there was some breakfast, a couple more episodes of The Office, and then golfing in the afternoon. I rode along and drank beer while The Doddster and the 'rents played golf. After being out on the course for a couple hours, we headed back to the house to have burgers for dinner, take some quick showers and have the neighbors over for some gambling dice games--the Vermont way. (We had also taken Rusty for a walk that evening, where he got loose from the leash, farted at me and proceeded to eat some dried up frog roadkill within a span of about 30 seconds.) But anyway, that night there were beers and Pomtinis, displays of drunkenness and several rounds of LCR, Gramps' horseshoes game and Screw Your Neighbor. There was also a Battle of the Sexes on whether or not there should be a jointly-owned Jones-Munks paddleboat. (The ladies ended up taking that one, as there was a paddle boat in the yard by the next afternoon.) After the alcohol had been flowing for a bit, The Doddster and our dear friends and neighbors' niece's boyfriend began quoting stoner movies. Before the night was over, the two of them embraced good-bye. After which he said, 'I think we would have a lot of fun together. He seems like a really fun, drunk guy. I mean, he hugged me!' And, once the guests had gone, we headed down to the basement where he drunkenly got SPANKED by me in Ping Pong before we retired for some more Office. It was by this point that I knew that the weekend was going well: after the fun golf game and when The Doddster said 'Your parents are officially cool. Especially because I don't think your dad is going to shoot me.'

On Sunday morning we woke up to the nicest day of all, and headed to The Lakehouse for brunch. We ended up sitting smushed in between the band and a table full of muscle-bound, pervy Jerseyans or Long Islanders (you never can tell the difference: except one knows how to pump gas and the other doesn't...summer from S.U. is supposed to be getting away from that breed.) Then we set out for a little cruise around the lake. Once we got back there was more Office, cooking up some dinner and waiting for the other half of the Boyfriend Extravaganza to arrive. The Doddster and I were assigned the task of retrieving kindling for that night's bonfire, during which time he went to go down a little slope off of the driveway to grab some sticks. He fell and slid down the hill a little bit, which I proceeded to laugh at. Only later when I saw the raspberry on his elbow did I feel bad about that. Got some good kindling though.

After dinner, we and the 'rents and I went out for a disappointing sunset cruise and came back to find The Doddster's high school spooning buddy in the kitchen with Katie. We got in one episode when everyone else was out starting the fire. The 'around the fire conversation' was quite a bit tamer than usual (usual being The Inspector talking about sparkers...I'm sure both The Inspector and sparkers are things that will probably be explained once the Saratoga Track opens in a couple months.) Although we did get a story about a midget with a fake leg. But that isn't my story to tell. So we headed inside, grabbed some snacks and surprise! watched some more Office. (Which I am ashamed to say I fell asleep during.) Katie and I had to bunk together for the last two nights so that the boys did not actually have to spoon on the futon in the guest room. And she, like seemingly everybody else, snores.

When we woke up on Monday, my goal was to get out on the boat by 1 p.m. at the very latest to get some sun. Between The Doddster's sleeping schedule, which normally doesn't permit him to arise before noon, and the fact that Syracuse made it to the lacrosse championships (and won) and the game started at 1 on ESPN, my goal wasn't met. After a while, we got down to the lake, and took the paddle boat out. It started raining, so we headed back upstairs to catch the end of the game. Then we headed back downstairs to drink some Magic Hats on the dock. After watching some old, underwear-clad neighbors struggling with getting their pontoon boat in the water, we headed back upstairs yet again to play Yahtzee and for a make-your-own-kebab Memorial Day cookout, followed by apple and blackberry pie, cappuccinos with Baileys and, inevitably, more beer. Then there were several competitive rounds of Scattergories, a game of Apples to Apples and some Texas Hold 'Em until late, which didn't leave much time to squeeze in the last 5 episodes of Season 3.

We woke up on Tuesday, also Mom's birthday, to get ready to leave. (More like I woke up, and then woke up The Doddster between the hours of 11 and noon...this happened all four days, which is one of the many reasons I'm sure he's glad to be back at home: back to the old sleep schedule.) Around 2 o'clock we all headed home in different directions: Katie and Matt to Granby in his car, Mom and I took the Vibe back to CT as well, Dad and Rusty in the truck and The Doddster back to Syracuse. All in all it was a great weekend, and like I said earlier, there were few awkward moments (which may not be as fun for the blog, but is better in that it will help ensure that I don't develop an ulcer.)