Family Fail

I should have known it was going to be an interesting day when it started out with a lady standing in her front doorway wearing a muumuu yelled at me for taking a picture of the limb of a tree in her yard. It was the first moment of many that day, I could have kicked myself in the butt for not being armed with my real camera. My iPhone miserably failed to capture the beauty of the tiny iridescent rain drops lingering on each tip of the tangled branches, separating itself in class from the gloomy sky. 

I called my mom to verify the family's arrival time to help move my brother and to make sure they were equipped with kolaches. Turns out they stopped and bought some for themselves, but not for Patrick and I........family fail.

When we arrived at my brother's new place, Saturday's story ripened..........HE HADN'T PACKED A SINGLE THING YET!

Then this nerd patrol asked me, and only me, to come with him to his old house to help him "pack the kitchen". Turns out "packing the kitchen" translated into packing everything, and he only had 3 soggy un-taped boxes with no packing supplies to make this happen..........you can imagine my disgust. 

In the meantime, Patrick went on an excursion with my dad, navigating him to 3 different Lowe's to get a couple of things, but they soon became stranded with a flat tire and spent the rest of the day at Discount Tire. 

Would you believe me if I said after 3 trips to Lowe's they still didn't buy the right thing?

Completely distracted by the unprecedented monopolization of one of my precious weekends off work, Patrick interrupts my agitation with a question, "Is it your Nana's birthday today?"

All I heard was "birthday". I completely dismissed his inquisition, "No," wondering why in the world he would be so crazy to ask me that, "But it's Haley's birthday today!" 

We called our niece immediately to wish her a good day.

A few hours later, unwinding over dinner and margaritas at La Hacienda with the best beef fajitas in the world, the subject of Nana's birthday arose again. 

OH. MY. GOSH. It really was Nana's birthday!
"I tried to tell you that, but you weren't listening to me!" Patrick chimed in. 

All day long I spent with my grandmother and completely did not realize she sacrificed her day to submerge herself in the ciaos of helping my retarded brother move ON HER BIRTHDAY ..........never once did she complain or say anything about it being a special day. 

At that moment, I felt just as ridiculous as everything else that had happened that day..........another family fail!

Luckily, I think Nana already knew her family is crazy, so none of this was a big surprise to the wisdom of her 74 years young. If everything else went wrong, at least we ended it right; celebrating a fantastic lady  that I don't know what I'd do without. 

Are birthdays a big deal in your family?