Sorry to take so long to reply . . .
We did go to the BBQ on Friday, and what a visit that was. I called my mom early that morning to find out what time we might be eating. Of course, she couldn't give me a definite time, so I told her we'd be there around 2. She was just as sweet as she could be. She didn't make a single sarcastic comment.
We got to their house after 2. I'd planned to make pasta salad but discovered I was missing an ingredient so I decided to make a cake instead. My mom informed me I didn't have to make a cake, and that I really didn't need to bring anything. Things were very, very tense with H there, but that meant that my mom behaved somewhat. She treated H pretty well, and didn't make any comments about her to me. She did corner me at one point and harangued me about being careful at work because they might fire me for being gay. I nobly refrained from telling her that my co-workers already know and no one has said anything to me. When you give out your girlfriend's cell phone because you can't walk to the kitchen, people start to suspect something. No one really cares. She also got me off to tell me how tight things must be with only one salary (H lost her job and is watching a couple of kids for extra money). M has lost some weight due to his medicine and also because he's grown about 4 inches. We had to buy new clothes for him, and we ended up getting him several nice things at second hand stores and garage sales. My mom was offended by this and wanted to know if I couldn't afford to buy him clothes. I told her we just got a good bargain and they were nice things. She also got her dander up when she discovered that we make M do chores, including cleaning up the dog's messes in the yard. She thinks that's ridiculous, even though we have 3 dogs, and he doesn't feed, water, or pay for anything related to the animals.
We survived the day.
The next day my mom called me to inform me she would like to have M for a day in two weeks to take him shopping for school clothes (since we're so poor we can't find any for him). H told me just to let her buy stuff and think what she wanted. I had pretty much had the same idea.
Yesterday, she called to inform me that she was at a local business and had some things for me. So we had to go pick up the stuff. M took his puppy with us, since we needed dog food anyway. My mom informed me that he was an ugly puppy and not what she expected and my dad had seen much better dogs at the flea market. Never mind that it is M's dog, and we all love him. She called again later to find out if M had tried on the things she'd sent, and I told her he hadn't. She tend went on about my dog again and told me how I'd gotten taken by the guy we'd gotten him from, but that he seemed to be a very docile dog. I told her we liked him and that he was a good dog. She made sure to get in a good jab that she meant to tell me to tell H hello too.
I'm going to wait and see if she calls today, and I think I'm going to tell her that she doesn't need to call me everyday.
The leg is better. I get my stitches out tomorrow.
