Wine ‘o the month.

My blog has been pretty quiet since we moved here. I’ve been busy. And the things I’ve been busy with are not interesting.

John is back on Swing Shift. Which leaves my mornings full of cooking. Cooking breakfast. Cooking lunch. Cooking carry-out dinner. But my afternoons are for myself. To grocery shop, go to the gym and clean the house. Yesterday I went to Mt. Pleasant for a run on the Ravenel and a yoga class. Then I had a task.

John’s mom’s birthday is this week. Last year we got her a monthly wine membership to Kenwood in California. She is new-er to wine. And what she loved most was getting a package in the mail. She saved most of the bottles for us to drink.

With our Charleston financial situation a little different than our California, we decided not to re-subscribe, but to create our own. Our own Wine of the Month club. Naturally I was tasked with creating it.

Our custom Wine of the Month club.  With courtesy pairings and a detailed description of the month’s varieties.

John’s parents came this weekend to visit. The neighbors loved this. Every chance they had they would say ‘mmmm, how arrrre things were going?’ With a ‘knowing,’ sympathetic expression.

Sorry to spoil their neighborhood drama, but we actually LIKE having his parents here. They’re the beer drinking, sports watching, parents that love to take us out to dinner. And the bar. I never feel obligated to have a clean house (except of course, from John, so the house is clean anyway), I know they’ll indulge my healthy recipes (with a forced smile and lots of hot sauce), and they still have it in them to get a little wild on a Sunday night–while our poor waitress Kim tries to figure out how the four people wasted at the high bar at 8pm are related. And getting home. Shots for everyone!

Excursion to Ft. Sumter. I get seasick.

The only problem with John’s parents stems from John. And partially from an idea I had last Christmas.

That was my first Christmas meeting the parents. John and I had only been together a few months.

We got to the airport Christmas Eve-Eve at 5:30 a.m., about thirty minutes past the time we were aiming for. We parked my Kia in short term parking and raced into the gate. We skidded to a stop just inside the doors.

Southwest terminal was PACKED. There wasn’t a distinguishable line. Anywhere. Barely room for the two of us. And no room for our luggage. We inched towards what we thought was our group, took our place and tried to check into the flight on our phones.

We couldn’t. We were too late. Or there were so many people there was no cell service.

Soon we figured out that we weren’t in the right line. Thirty minutes later, another line, we finally were making progress towards our flight. Which I assume was already boarded and hearing the safety information.

I was watching a dog poop on the airport floor when they announced that the luggage conveyer was broken. They couldn’t check anyone in. But they promised to hold the flights.

Thirty more minutes. My feet were tired. I was tired. The dog was looking uncomfortable. They called our flight by number and we checked our bags. There was no one in security (everyone was still in line to check bags) and we were at the gate in five minutes.

‘We’re here to board our flight to Kansas City.’ We said to an exasperated attendant, handing him our tickets.

‘OK.’

He looked at the computer.

‘Oh…I’m sorry.’ He didn’t look sorry. ‘We only have one seat left.’

There were no flights. From San Diego. From LA. From Phoenix. Not that day. Not the next. No flights. No wait list. No Christmas in Nebraska.

I tried to get John to take the seat. He wouldn’t leave me.

I got out my phone and google mapped Kansas City Airport. Only 14 hours.

“Hey John,” I yelled to him. He was still trying to strike a deal with the attendant. “Let’s drive!”

We didn’t tell his mom we had rented a one-way car and were en route to Kansas City from California in the middle of winter. We lied and said our fake connecting flight got delayed in Colorado and we would be in the next day. We also lied and said the airline had hooked us up with a sweet hotel (which they absolutely do NOT do–I’ve been there.)

Fourteen hours, three gas stops, one Taco Bell stop, one McDonald’s stop, we were sleep deprived to the point of hysterics, completely disheveled and sick from the fast food. This was the most time we had ever spent together. We sat at the airport in sweatpants waiting for his mom’s blue truck to pull up.

Not the ideal situation to meet your future mother-in-law. But she was so excited to see John she barely noticed as a I heaved our luggage and a trash bag full of pillows and blankets into the bed of her truck.

We continued our lie until the Nebraska border. ‘JOHN!’ was all she could say when we finally confessed. She couldn’t believe we had acutally driven.

The next time we drove to Nebraska they knew we were driving. But they thought we were coming on Sunday. John lied to them and we surprised them on Saturday evening, his poor mom waist deep in the middle of cleaning the guest room.

So naturally it was time for payback.

Halloween night we went out with some friends (the same friends I drug to Fright Night) and had an ‘I’m too old for this,’ ‘I’m never doing this again’ night out downtown dressed up as the Dexter crew. The night ended at a Waffle House.

Deb and the Ice Truck Killer.

Friday morning I forced myself out of bed to start cleaning, thinking we had an impossible amount of errands to do and no time to clean the entire house before we were picking them up at the airport at 3:00 p.m.

I got John out of bed around 10:30 so he would have time to mow the yard. We were putting the final touches on the new closet when the doorbell rang. We looked at each other, half asleep. Confused. UPS always delivers at night.

I ran to the door in my pajamas.

‘SURPRISE!’

John’s parents had driven. For the past two days. From Nebraska. To catch us unprepared. And get John back for surprising them.

I have to say…they got us. I was so slow that morning it took about a minute to process who was standing at our door. All I could mutter was…’huh?.’ We really had no idea. And, after the surprise wore off, it only lit a fire under John. Who has been scheming against them since he realized they were standing on our doorstep.

Which we hadn’t exactly gotten ready for visitors.

Err…Welcome.