Father's Day Mackerel Style

I spent the better part of Sunday doing what my children should have been doing, seeing as it's their father we were celebrating, and seeing as they are more than old enough to deal with making a nice breakfast and helping out with preparing the picnic we planned to have for dinner to celebrate their wonderful dad and all that he is.

Yeah, whatever.

Dee took two hours to wash dishes from the day before, because that's how he rolls, and that's after arguing with him about it for close to 20 minutes because he wasn't washing them properly, and they were ending up dirtier than when he started. And Em was cranky, what else is new. So, I started making Mr. Handsome's omelette, replete with peppers, red pepper cream cheese, and onions, as well as a batch of bacon, just the way he likes it, but inside I was boiling, because why can't the kids just stop fighting and whining and act their age?

Oh. They are acting their age? Goddammit.

Well, grow up then.

Mr. Handsome loved his breakfast, but his coffee sucked big time. Our coffeemaker works well for the most part, but once in a while, it decides to take some time off, so what you end up with is coffee the strength of used dish water. Not so palatable. I remade his coffee once I had another internal hissy fit, as he got back to work on the basketball contraption he has been spending the weekend putting together for Dee (more on that another day, I promise).

Then, it was time to start preparing the picnic dinner: homemade potato salad, grilled chicken, with some other salads and odds and ends. And, of course, lemonade.

Because of my arthritis, I need help doing things such as chopping vegetables and peeling. And since we were making potato salad, potatoes needed to be peeled. I thought this would be a great activity for the kids to do, so I set them up at the table with a bag of potatoes, a bowl of water, and some knives.

Before three minutes went by, World War X was well under way, and I lost it.

"Out! Get out!" I screamed at them, all the while realizing this was not the way Father's Day was supposed to be. And then, I also realized that shooing them away meant only one thing: I was going to be peeling potatoes.

Both kids left in a huff, and I was left to do all the dirty work.

So, I peeled the remaining potatoes, which were many, and I boiled them, and then I chopped all the other veggies going into the potato salad, and then I boiled them for a couple of minutes since the kids are allergic to them if eaten in a raw state (long story made short: they both have a birch tree allergy, which has also caused them to be very sensitive to most fresh fruit and vegetables, unless said fruit and vegetables have been heated up enough to remove the offending protein from said fruit and vegetables), and then I mixed it all together, along with some cooked bacon, mayo, Dijon mustard, and olive oil. And it was YUMMY!

And then I started on the chicken, cooking it in bacon grease, and when I was finished that, Em made a lemon meringue pie which was amazing, to say the least. And then together we made a little sauce to go with the chicken, made with mayo, sour cream, parmesan cheese, basil, and some chopped up plum tomatoes. Dee also made a lovely green salad, with much greenery landing on the kitchen floor, some of it ending back in the salad bowl, I'm sure, when I wasn't looking. I'm still pretending I don't know anything about it, because if I think about it too much, I might vomit.

And then our picnic plans were dashed to absolute smithereens when the clouds closed over us and rains came down, and poured and poured, with ominous clouds of black and grey. And then, the sun would peek out again, and I, forever hopeful, would think we could have a picnic after all, but then it would pour again.

And in-between there somewhere, there was the installing of the basketball net, of which I won't go into much detail in this post (because I go into detail in another post, and doing it twice would really be too much, don't you think?), at which point the rains came down yet again, drenching everyone but me, because I managed to stand inside the garage while everyone else was standing up high on ladders outside the garage (yes, I'm no dumb blonde).

And then Dee announced he was so hungry his legs were quivering, so Em set the table for our indoor picnic, and we laid out all the food, and we waited for Mr. Handsome's grand entrance so that we could eat. And grand it was, as he proudly came down the stairs, his lower half wrapped in a towel. He had no pants on. And that's how he rolls on his day. Sorry, no photos.

And that was Father's Day.

Next year: take out pizza and a movie.