how to melt your in-laws

Step One:  Invite them to visit you in New York, citing gorgeous spring weather and manipulating the grandmother's soft spot for her long lost granddaughter.

Step Two:  Keep things idyllic for the first day and a half, so as not to set off any initial alarms, which people are prone to have upon arriving somewhere new.  Take them for good Greek food and wine, amble through the park, permit granddaughter ham up her ballet routines*, facilitate trip to a museum, etc.

*A note on the ballet routines:  Josephine's interest in "ballet" has morphed from a mild curiosity that was sparked by me taking the occasional class for fun in Austin-- into something she has completely owned and redefined to fit whatever activity and song she is currently performing.  We bring home ballet books from the library so she can mimic the poses in the pictures, and Sean will facilitate various lifts with her (which is cute, but also a stretch: it somehow turns into her tearing around the apartment full speed, running into his arms, and him lifting her up to see if some part of her can touch the ceiling).

Left to her own devices, she invents "Chinese New Year Ballet" (in honor, I guess, of the holiday they celebrated at her preschool before we left town), "Washington DC Ballet" (when Sean was there on a trip), "Dangerous Ballet" (her attempt to acknowledge the perils of jumping from item to item, while trying to convince me this is a sanctioned "ballet" activity), and on and on.  Most involve awkward poses and tumbles, and usually there is loud singing.  It's an all out performance.  Even more so now that Mama Jo has provided her with the ballerina garb that you see in these pictures.



To see a clip of her in action, click here.  This is especially late in the evening and frighteningly slaphappy, but I don't have any other clips yet.  (Astonishing, considering the frequency with which she does "ballet."  I better stop taking it for granted and record it before she moves along to some other obsession.)

Step Three:  The following daybreak, coordinate weather conditions so as to have both heat and  humidity cranked way up.  Promptly embark on a walking tour of Astoria-- the full neighborhood-- one that requires your father-in-law to actually buy a hat to protect his head from burning.  (modeled by Josephine, below)

Stop briefly for lunch, but otherwise, DO NOT LET THEM REST.  It is imperative that you walk the full way back-- no public transportation-- so they can appreciate the various facets of your neighborhood.  Then invite them up to your 3rd floor oven of an apartment-- but do not let them sit still long enough to cool off.  After a few minutes of playing, insist that Josephine needs her nap.  Send them on their way with barely enough time to see Ground Zero (their only non-granddaughter-oriented request) before demanding they be back to your apartment in Queens by 5:00, thus ensuring they don't have time to stop by their hotel, take cold showers, rest, cool off, or otherwise do anything pleasant.

Step Four:  Upon their exhausted return to your sweltering abode, ignore all air conditioned restaurants in the neighborhood.  Stay in and "treat" them to a gourmet spread of foods you've been wanting to share with them... In other words, eat dinner IN the oven.  To help polish off the internal temperature of the apartment, make certain that at least a couple of these items require turning on the stove and oven for several minutes.  

Enjoy the expressions on their faces when you tell them you don't even have ice for their water.

Step Five:  Send them on their way early the next morning, covered in heat rash, eagerly looking forward to their Texan weather with central air conditioning.

Step Six:  The next day, go out and buy a window AC unit.  You know, just to rub it in.  (And because you're finally willing to admit that the situation has indeed grown intolerable for your own self, too.) (And because you actually do want them to come back again sometime, and you know they won't without the promise of climate control!)