About Last Night

We went to a Valentine's Day party last night. I haven't been to a Valentines Day party since I was in grade school. My BFF D put it all together and it was one of the best times we've had in a long time.

Of course, the b & s-i-l went, as did my nephew and his new girlfriend. Of course we all traveled together...because nothing says romance more than traveling in a van with your family. *ANYWAY*

D is married to Kevin's BFF W and they live near the Canadian border so we don't see them as often as we'd like. D invited her BFF from high school & her husband. Kevin and L have only met once before, at D &W's wedding, and they are like bickering siblings. I don't know what happens between the two of them but it's So ON when they're together. In a good, funny, sassy way.

They also invited one of Kevin's oldest & dearest friends and his wife. His wife is the one that made the snarky comment a few months ago about "Oh, you even vaccumed!" We try to avoid her at all costs possible. She is one of those "Enough about you, let's talk about Me some more" people. And it's never positive. Ever.

Unplanned, avoiding her became a party game. We started in the kitchen, she joined us, we moved to the living room. Some of went into the dining room, she followed and we returned to the living room. I don't know how she did not notice that the group shifted en masse upon her entering the room.

At one point, she began talking about horses. One of her favorite topics. There is not one single horse person in the room so you could see all of our eyes begin to glaze over.

She mentioned something about taking horses across the border and how strict they are but she can still essentially smuggle things across. At this point, D says "Um, that's my job...to help people bring stuff legally across the border."

Bouncing off her like she was surrounded by a shield, the wife says something along the lines of "Oh? You could help me get things across?"
D's eyes bugged out of her head. "No, I help prevent people like you from doing that." The wife starts to say "I know..." when D interrupts her and gestures to L who works for the POLICE DEPARTMENT OF THE TOWN DIRECTLY ON THE BORDER and says "And she is a police officer..."

At that point, she kind of got it but I still think she thought they were kidding. We were all laughing incredulously. And I have no doubt that L probably stored her information in her memory for future use.

Well, later on, poor Kevin kept getting stuck with her. The unofficial party game ramped up, with new rules.

Toward the end of the evening, she sat near him and began blathering on, and on, and on. Kevin was seated on a chair to my right. She was on his left and I was sitting on the couch with D. Finally, I stage whispered to D "Save Kevin."

She thought for a minute and finally began to tease him about not eating her dessert. (a running joke all evening) This gave him a momentary relapse until she literally began talking over everyone. L jumped in, teasing him mercilessly to no avail. There was simply no shutting up the wife.

A few minutes later, I noticed that W was in the dining room, snacking & taking pictures. I walked over and said "SAVE KEVIN. If you love him at all, you will create some sort of distraction." W sighed heavily. "I couldn't take it. I had to walk away. I can't help him."

So, I returned to the couch but not before making some inane comment to Kevin, trying to break the stream of nonsense that the wife was spewing. D and I are doing the shorthand thing: silently signally "WTF! what can we do?"

Finally from across the room, my nephew, God bless that boy, said very loudly "So! Racing is on tomorrow, right?" knowing that six out of the twelve people would have something to say about this. For about ten minutes that rescued Kevin until mercifully, her husband decided it was time to go.

As the door shut behind them, I think the entire house breathed a sigh of relief.