Not Your Ordinary Party

 

Note that this post has been delayed for for over a week. It paused from frustration and my need to de-stress, and paused again for other things I needed to say instead as the days went by.  Some of what is written about, as in present, future or past, is a fubar jumble from where this one will land. You may have already read some  of it in previously published posts.  I don't feel like apologizing or huge rewrites. Read it or don't. I'm kinda busy lately. But weird stuff happens when hours worth of organization don't reach those it's planned for. Murphy must have been on the party planning committee with me.

Steve had planned for his 83rd birthday party for nearly a year, including this time having no cake.  His last two birthdays he'd ordered a nicely decorated one from the local bakery, fishing decorations in both frosting and in edible decorations on the top, like a boat, fisherman, and line, the end of which had always snagged a huge fish, regardless of the actual fisherman's luck. But it's been a hard year for justifying something that expensive. So the plan had simply been to invite family to our home, grill burgers and hot dogs, and hold a nice potluck. He didn't even shy from the idea of everybody singing "Happy Birthday" to him, though both of us are the two known musical tune carriers in his family and find it close to torture to smile through the dissonance some times.

I have discovered that it happens in the families of good friends as well. I'm learning to experience it as a minute of joy, and concentrate on the good wishes expressed. This year the way things turned out, nobody got around to singing anyway. The good wishes were all still there... despite everything else.

With Steve in a rehab facility, we weren't having the party at home. First step was to talk to them and find out if, huge as they are, they had some kind of party room we could hold his party in. Yes, and I got a tour through the maze of halls and turns to a large room with tables and chairs, a small sink, and an adjoining bathroom which was well furnished with grab bars, as well as being large enough for anybody in a wheelchair plus their attendant. I was shown the closest door to it in relation to the parking lot, and another door opening out back to a large grassy area with a large swing up a small hill. One needs a code to go through those doors even in daylight hours since there is no staff overseeing comings and goings like the main entrance has.  I wrote that code down and memorized it. It turns out that after hours - however those are defined - one needs to call staff in order to leave even the main entrance. Of course that code lets you leave without having to call somebody and wait for them to be able to reach you in this fairly distant wing, but nobody explained that fine point to us. Somebody who'd been given the code to get in for the party simply typed it in without asking if it worked and we found out it did, though this was well after cleanup when we were last ones out. We did discover that holding the door open for the last straggler did manage to set off an alarm. As it shut off as soon as the door closed, and nobody had come to check on us during that delay, we just left. Why wait around to make an explanation? Especially when nobody seemed to be bothered.

Part of the "fun" of this facility is the maze. On my second visit I was able to navigate to Steve's room with minimal wrong turns. It took my fourth visit to leave without asking staff's directions. Going from his room to the party room... I'm saving that part for later. At least eventually there were signs so we knew we were heading in the right direction. They just didn't say "Party Room" so people had to pay attention to what they hadn't learned they needed to pay attention to. By the time we all knew they needed more information we just extended the line of people so one could always see somebody familiar ahead of them.

Oy! But I'm getting ahead of myself. Guess I'm not totally de-stressed yet.

As bare-bones as the party room is without a kitchen, and a big part of the menu being grilled burgers and dogs, the first question had to be could we set up a charcoal grill outside the building? Nope! OK, grill at  our place and haul the cooked meat over. Only 4 1/2 miles door to door. So what if they cool a bit? As planning progressed, the family bringing the meat (their present to Steve) wound up with delays in arrival. So the party started almost two hours before the meal was ready.

 The family includes grandchildren from independent adults to elementary school age. Then there are great-grands from preschool to elementary. The youngest needed something other than adult conversation and some food to keep them happy. It's becoming a tradition for Grandma to provide a cardboard playground to keep them busy, then recycle the remaining pieces afterwards, however many loads into the recycle bin it takes. The huge new furnace box has been occupying the living room just waiting for kids. It was finally time.

My very helpful son not only came over with his keyhole saw the night before to cut all kinds of interesting and varied holes in the "tunnel" with different sizes, shapes, and folding spots for hours of creative play. He even vacuumed the carpet afterwards. The cardboard crumbs were more like sawdust! At least they match the color of the carpet, so nobody will know if any got missed. I won't tell!

For the littlest people, the monster furnace box became their playground while they waited. The person with a pickup who could have hauled it over to the party area to a large patch of grass outdoors, or inside if weather required, was tied up at work. An angry customer and cops were involved and we still never have heard the story - but we will ask next time we see him - so the families with the little kids arrived at our house with a box to play in, well before heading over to the rehab center and the official party. At least there were snacks for the wait.

One of the kids had informed his mother a few days earlier that he had plans for destroying the box this time. He's been excellent at doing it in the midst of play during other visits with normal boxes. I assured her that he'd have a difficult time with this box since any box holding a furnace for shipping has be be extra strong. And frankly, any inroads he could make - or all four who used it together - would be helpful to me by saving work in recycling preparation. It turns out that the box still sits on the living room floor as intact as Paul made it after his saw redesigned it. The kids even got up on top of it hoping to squish it flat, and while it bent slightly under the largest one, as soon as she got down it returned to original shape.  Every time I look at it I wonder if there's a daycare in the area that would love to haul it to their location and turn kids loose on it... with a promise of recycling of course. Otherwise it's the saw and a vacuum again. I'm really not interested in keeping it long enough till the next big family event, Thanksgiving. There's not really a place to store it out of the flow of traffic, and right now, on that point, it's good Steve isn't here having to figure out how to avoid it.

(Note that this problem was solved days later by a neighbor. Not the Steve part, the box part. You may have read about it already.)

Steve was in a wheelchair for his mobility getting to the party. He didn't know where it was since I was still figuring it out myself in that maze, and I couldn't push him around the place by myself with my shoulders still having restricted activity even if I weren't tied up at home. So a good friend of his went over early, was directed to his room, and spent time with him while waiting for all the rest of us to show up. I had gotten such great assistance from the weekday staff in locating the party room, checking out the facilities, etc., that I made the huge mistake of thinking that the weekend staff knew what was going on and how to get Steve there. 

I had sent out long emails documenting which main entrance to go in and where from there, passed the code for the doors on to all, and thought that was what was needed. It is totally simple from the parking lot, just go in the door  next to the huge chapel which cannot be mistaken for any other purpose, put in the code, see the room door under a huge clock up near the ceiling as soon as you walk in, and it will be the only large room, off the area,  full of tables and chairs with a bathroom off the corner. Much easier done than described... in theory.

First problem is not everybody read the email. Some ignored it, others had changed their email addresses and nobody told me. Even so, when they showed up at our place, I made sure they heard "door next to the chapel"  and a reminder to use the code for the door, in the same sentence as questioning that they did in fact have the door code.

That means, of course, they all went in the main door by the flagpole instead.  Sigh! That is the front desk, but it's not staffed on weekends. Every bunch of people had to hunt for somebody who knew, first, how to find Steve's room since they at least knew his name, and then find staff who could point them to the party room from there.

Remembering the words "next to the chapel" would have made a huge difference. Instead the staff    directed everybody to a small room with a table and a few chairs that is often used for a group of visitors or even a patient plus staff conference meeting. It's as far away from the party room as is possible to get in that facility. It was also completely packed, no room to move. 

When I arrived in the proper location the party wasn't there! It was my turn to hunt up people, starting with finding staff who knew where our party had been relocated to despite having reserved the large party room. It was, crammed, everyone was hungry with no plates or anything since all that was in my car, with nothing to keep little kids entertained to be found. 

That family left early. There was no communication to the outside because the walls of the building are solid concrete block and cell signals don't penetrate. I'd had to stay behind to make sure the grill cooked all the meat, the coals were quenched, and the house was locked. The rest of the people made the best of it until I arrived.  I finally tracked them down,  then led the way to where it was actually to be held, but only because my son had stayed back assisting in the grilling, had a key to our place to lock up, and sent me on my way about half an hour before the meat finally arrived. I arranged for everybody to parade through the halls carrying what they needed to, snaking around corners to the proper location, occasionally waiting for folks to catch up instead of getting lost a second time, until we arrived in the actual party room.

We have no plans to try that again!

Of course we didn't have plans for how it turned out either, but once we were all together in the right spot we had a good time... mostly. Gifts were opened, tables spread,  stories told. One of the adults who'd been grilling got violently ill, had to leave with his family early and stop at the hospital after somebody insisted it could be appendicitis from all the symptoms. After sitting in the waiting room for three hours, waiting for blood test results that was so delayed the blood coagulated and the staff asked for another sample, he was totally fed up and walked out. So far as we know, he's been fine since, so it must have been something he ate before the party since nobody else was ill.

Steve got to see most of his local extended family including some he married into on my side, except the ones stuck at his job dealing with the cops.  He never made the party. Steve's friend who had arrived at the rehab facility early to keep him company, stuck around long enough to wheel him back to his room afterwards, so he had a  good time all the way through, and his friend did as well. (Or if he didn't, I never heard about it, nor did Steve.)

I've asked for email addresses from those who have changed theirs, as well as asking other family members who did have those newer email addresses, could they please send them off to me for the next party we will be planning or whatever family communications?  Of course nobody has sent me any yet. We'll have to find new problems for the next party we try to throw since we trust nobody will be in that same facility recovering from major surgery again. Since those parties tend to be in snowy months, I figure I don't have to do any work  in arranging problems. The weather will do all the work for us. Even for people who can't/won't read  emails they still know where our house is, so the weather may have to get creative. It would tend to fit in with this year.

I just need to come up with more boxes by then for the wee ones. Please, no more new furnaces needed for box donations!

If you've managed to stick with this post for this long, here's a bonus reward: Steve gets to come home Friday. He's been working hard on his PT, walking with his walker, using their stationary bicycle, getting himself in and out of bed, and finally working on stairs today. The surgical crew stopped by since he couldn't come visit them, pronounced his surgical site to be in good shape yesterday, bandages and stitches now gone. His insurance will allow (pay for) the extra days until Friday. He'll miss the Friday bingo game, but not enough to stay, and after winning three prizes last week, somebody else will get a chance! On top of all that he'll have three weeks of Jeopardy recorded on the TV to watch when he gets here. My reward is not just having him home, but that he didn't ask me to save the weeks of all his cooking shows on the DVR for him to watch to make up  for all that time missed!  What a guy!