Mike's Cookout

Mike wrote in 2 describe a family cookout they just had @ the big house:

April,

[Dear formerly little sister], Since you are stuck in Winnipeg, I thought I would let you know about the great social gathering we had in the back yard of our new house. My lovely Deanna felt we should entertain, since we have the big house now. She said to me, “Who should we invite?” I said, “Naturally, my family and not yours.” Deanna said, “I mean who outside of your family?” I said, “We could invite Gordon and Tracey and their kids.” Deanna agreed. Then I said, “And we could invite my Grandpa Jim and his wife Iris, so Gordon and Tracey will have someone close to their age to talk to.” Deanna said, “I thought Gordon was only one year older than you.” I was confused for a moment; but then I remembered she was right.

Then I got a bright idea. I said to Deanna, “Let’s make it a weird hat party.” Deanna disagreed. However, when I was calling people up to invite them I would say, “It’s a weird hat party.” The only really odd call was to Grandpa Jim and Iris, because when I invited them, Iris broke down and started crying, “It’s been 21 months since we have been invited to Sharon Park Lane. Bless you Mike.” I started to take back my invitation. After all, who wants crying old people at a party? Then I remembered Gordon and Tracey would need them to talk to.

Then I got a call from mom saying how Elizabeth had managed to collar Anthony Caine, so we had to extend an invitation to him too; since he will be family pretty soon. However, I told him that we would not be serving any French food for his half-Quebecoise kid.

As the day arrived, I put on my funny blue hat and began the cooking of the burgers, dogs, and buns on the grill. Anthony Caine showed up and he did not have a funny hat on, but he did have possibly the whitest legs I have seen on a man. He said his daughter told him he looked old in a funny hat, so he decided not to wear one. Gordon and Tracey were there in their funny hats. I knew I could count on Gordon, even though he took his hat off every time Anthony Caine took off his shoes and socks. I didn't understand it, but I was too busy to question him about it. When he arrived, I gave him a beer, and said, “The old folks are back there, if you need someone to talk with.” He and Tracey sat down with Grandpa Jim and Iris. I noticed only Grandpa Jim was wearing the funny hat. Of course dad showed up with his choo-choo engineer hat for his weird hat.

The burgers were so sizzling, they sizzled with an extra ‘z’. I was master of my domain. The king of cooking. As I lifted each burger off the grill with my two-pronged fork, I realized that burgers fall off those pretty easily. Then I was the prince of picking up burgers off the ground before Edgar got them. I really wish mom and dad had left those dogs back at their house. They top my list of animals not to bring to a picnic.

Mom was an eating machine. While she was passing out shrimp, she ate almost half the entire shrimp plate. The first burger of the day went to Paul Mayes, Gordon’s oldest. Gordon held him in his arms and I said without thinking, "You and your grandfather look really good together." Of course, I corrected my mistake.

Later I put all the hamburgers and hotdogs into buns and ran though the mustard and Ketchup to make sure each burger was properly marinated. I passed these around to everyone, and I saw mom grab a burger while she still had her hands on the hotdog. Some people complained they didn’t want mustard or ketchup on their burgers, but they weren’t wearing a funny hat, so I ignored them.

Apparently, my son has never seen his grandmother eating before, and it was quite an eye-full for someone that young. This is kind of odd since we all lived together for 7 months, but I cannot remember a time when we all sat down to eat together in that time. Can you?

Then Mom pronounced, “Whooohh!! If I eat one more thing, I am going to blow up.” My son took what mom said at face value, and started screaming for me, when my daughter offered mom a marshmallow she cooked for her. I got to my son and said, “What’s the problem, and thanks for asking for me and not your mom this time.“ He explained to me why he was scared. I didn’t have to hear any more. I grabbed my son, threw him to the ground and covered his body with mine to protect him from the blast. Lucky for us, the blast didn’t come. It would have injured quite a few people if it did. I congratulated my son for warning us. We did have to ask mom to sit away from us, until she had digested enough not to be a threat to anyone.

Love,
Michael Patterson

LOL, Mike, U R just as literal-minded (no, not "literary-minded") as yr 2 yr, 9 mo old on! Yeah, I've described sum tymes when the whole fam have eaten 2gether, but I guess Robin had 4gotten.

Apes