Carl Hutzler’s Blog

My birthday is in March….March 29th, every year. And if you read this blog you likely know I celebrated 40 years this time around by sailing the Caribbean with my family and then taking the kids skiing and hiking in Utah for a week. Pretty nice celebration.

It is now June. My birthday is a good 2+ months ago. But the weekend before last, there was something “up”

Every year on Memorial Day weekend we throw a backyard party complete with 60 people, tons of burgers and dogs, badminton, and maybe a couple of beers. This year was no different….or so I thought.

Uncle Joel (NYC) was standing in Phil and Jenny’s Driveway.

The invitations went out on schedule in April. My wife sends them via Evite.com. This year she made a strange mistake and told everyone the party was on Saturday. I did not even notice, as I knew when the party was and only skimmed the invitation when I received it in my email. But a week later, she told me about her “silly” mistake and sent out an updated email to everyone that the party was actually on Sunday. Had we been in March, that would have triggered all sorts of alarms.

My dad and Phil and Jenny’s son Ben hugging me.

As the weekend approached, I got a call from my mom. She needed to speak to Rylan right away. She had tried calling her on her cell phone but Rylan did not answer and could I hand my phone to her right now. I told my mom that would be difficult as I was in the car and Rylan was at home. Strangely, my mom got a little upset and said she had been trying to talk with Rylan about the party this weekend and “How can I get her on the phone! I need to speak to her!”. I had no idea what the issue was, but promised I would have her call as soon as possible. Again, had this been March, I would have started logging into all of my wife’s online accounts with her normal password, checking our Internet router logs, etc. Stuff I do normally anyway ;-)

My father in law, Ralph

My friend Ken Feldman and I talk all the time on Skype. One day in the lead up to the party, we were talking about his accommodations at the house (he was coming in for the party from NYC). First, I was a bit curious about Kenny and Michelle (his wife) actually making the drive down for our Memorial Day party. I mean, we are all great friends but it just seemed a little unusual as they had never done that before. And it’s a long way for a 4 hour party. But we have visited them before for one of their parties, so maybe they just figured it would be a fun trip. But then Kenny said he was maybe coming on Saturday when he had said he could only come on Sunday due to Michelle’s work schedule. For a second I was about to ask if she had “moved things around” in her calendar for the trip down, but then I just didn’t ask. Had this been March, I would have declared a surprise party emergency and locked both kids in a room to pump them for information. But of course they would have had no idea as no one told them!

Wife Rylan, enjoying party more than me!

Rylan was prepping for the party in her normal way. Cleaning out rooms and drawers and telling me to steam clean the rugs. Plus I had to fix the ceiling in the hallway which had some water damage from an issue in the bathroom upstairs. So I had a full plate. But the strange thing was that she was not nagging me every day to do this or that as she usually does just before 60 people show up. Not once did she mention the backyard and getting the weeding done or the dog poop cleaned up. No talk about the big trampoline and what we should do about 30 little kids all wanting to jump at the same time even though she had mentioned it earlier in the year.

And another curious thing was that she and Jenny were planning to get “all the party supplies” the day before the party. Why was this strange? Well, it wasn’t really except for the fact that when she got home, I did not really notice any supplies! I mean, she had some bagels and cream cheese and some wine…but not that much. She did not even ask me to help her bring it in from the car. Again, being generally clueless, I did not even focus much on this. But had it been in March…

The cake (and also the invitation!). That’s “me”, hiking, skiing, listening to my iPod, taking pictures, in my western hat. Photoshop is powerful technology that can sometimes fall into the wrong hands ;-)

So the day of the party arrives…Saturday. I picked up her mom who was flying into Dulles but got rerouted into National. Val and I took our time getting home as I decided to take her on a little tour of DC and get some steamed shrimp at the Maine Ave fish market. And I had finished steam cleaning the carpets and only had a little painting left to do. Why not have some fun and kill some time? Val mentioned that she felt really lucky to make it to DC after her plane had mechanical issues. I was really happy she made it “in time”, but I did not think it was as big a deal as she seemed to think. After all, the party was tomorrow!

On the way home, Val and I did a tour of the local neighborhood as I was still casually looking for my son’s missing bike. Rylan called my cell to see what we were doing. Why were we taking so long?? It was 4pm or so and Rylan knew that people were starting to gather at Jenny and Phil’s house for the party. But she did not let on anything to me…nor did Val say anything about wanting to go home.

Val and I finally got home and I started the finishing work on the ceiling. I applied primer and 15 mins later, painted it as well. Had to get that finished up for the big party tomorrow.

I was pretty tired and sat down in front of the TV with the dog. Rylan said it was time to go to Phil and Jenny’s for dinner. They had invited us to dinner the night before our big party “so we would not have to cook”. OK, I guess. But I was tired and almost said I would stay back and rest. Luckily for her, I decided to just go.

On the drive over, Rylan boldly ran a yellow light and congratulated herself on it. Strange for my wife. As we neared Phil and Jenny’s house I saw a lot of cars in their street. I started to say, “Wow, someone’s having a big party”. Then she gunned the gas and drove into their driveway at 40mph and I started to get focus on tons of people in their driveway. What the heck is….wait, I recognize that….Ohhhhh, my…that is Uncle Joel!

I’ve been had!

Must have been 75 people there. A live band too! And great cookin’ from a Cajun restaurant in Great Falls (whose website link has been previously visited in my web browser!).

I had a great time and really appreciated seeing so many people who had come so far to help celebrate my aging. A number of folks came from NYC, a ton from Baltimore, several from NJ and Hartford, CT and even Pittsburg, VA and even my good friend Bill Hess who just had his second child one week earlier, made the two hour trip from Charlottesville!!

I need to thank a lot of people, but there are really too many to list. But hey, I have to thank to Phil and Jenny for hosting the event on their lawn and handling the police when they came to visit. They are the best! And my mom and dad for helping with the invitations and decorations. And to my wife who actually pulled it off…something I did not know she was conniving enough to do! Got to put more web cams in the house…my current coverage is obviously not sufficient.

Well done, honey!