Monday, July 20, 2009

A Moral Dilemma

I have a small moral quandry to place before you dear friends. Husband's 40th birthday is this Sunday, and I am planning things to perfection. Sunday morning we will do presents here, breakfast will involve bacon, and then we will trot off to church. After church we will meet up with his mother and her travelling companion at Husband's favorite restaurant, followed by cake at his mother's house, where she will give him his present. After that, the rest of the afternoon will stretch before him in lazy, humid, cigar-smoking leisure. By 3pm he will have no responsibilities, I will make a light dinner, we will put the boys to bed early, and all will be well. Perfection, I tell you, perfection.

Now here's the fly in the ointment: his mother just called, and can we possibly re-arrange all of Sunday, turning lunch into dinner, cake after that, cause ourselves to get dressed up in our nicelies twice, squash his long relaxation into two hours, keep the kids up late, and generally give everyone in this house a headache? Why, you ask? Well, she and her travelling companion have nicer seats than usual to the Astros game (Club seats, she says) and that, of course, is at 1pm or some such time. So while she's dying to celebrate her precious son's birthday with him, can we please do it after her baseball game?

What do you think? Do I act like the gracious Southern Lady I occasionally pretend to be, or do I allow my inner Yankee to tell her to suck eggs? All advice welcome and appreciated.

3 comments:

Golden Tee Widow said...

Do you have any recollection of Marshall's 40th birthday "party?" Just say no.

Missy said...

I would ask your husband what he wants to do, and do whatever he says.

And by the way I can totally see my husband saying, "Ok, we'll go there for dinner, whatever." And it would annoy the crap out of me. But it's his birthday, right?

Either that, or see if you can go over there for dinner Sat night instead.

Anonymous said...

While I'm totally a fan of keeping family relationships cool, I'd go all Yankee on her. OK, maybe not...but I'd keep the plans and find a different time to "celebrate" with her.