Are you going to keep us in suspense? How did everything go? Any new brother stories?
It went fairly well, thanks for asking!
The meal was very well-received, and the SIL minded her manners, for the most part. She did say the cornbread was dry, but she's used to that light-as-cake fluffy cornbread that restaurants serve. I make a cornbread that's purposely a little drier, because it's meant to be crumbled into milk or into soup, so when she offered, without prompting, mind you, that the cornbread was dry, the rest of us looked at her like she was crazy, then politely informed her that, you know, you're supposed to put that in your soup.
She also got into a little snit for about 30 minutes when my brother was telling a story about my dad in which my dad had insulted a young, rather heavyset girl ("Lord, look at you, you're big as a mule!").
Now, in defense of my dad, he's got some mild-to-middlin' dementia, and what little filter he ever had is gone.
Anyway, he was telling the story, and when he got to that part, she said if she'd had been there, she'd have told him off, and I said, just making light, that he's an old man (in his 80's), and when a person reaches that age, they ought to be able to say whatever they want, because the rest of their life is probably pretty crappy.
She didn't agree, and then Lee said he
did agree, and that pissed her off, and she's the type who has to have everyone agree with her obviously superior opinion, so she kept hammering away at it, taking it far more seriously than it warranted, and refused to talk to anyone for a while, but she got over it eventually.
As far as Lee, tame by his usual standards, but he did go missing for a bit, and I found him at the neighbor's, chatting up one of the women there. He's not a playboy or a womanizer, but he absolutely adores women, and he can't help talking to them and being extra friendly with any women in the area. The funny part is, he doesn't know my neighbors - he'd gone outside to stretch his legs a bit, looked across the road and saw a couple of women in the driveway and went over for a chat.
I had to go fetch him, and of course, later my neighbor told me what a wonderful brother I had and they just thought he was so funny and yada yada blah blah blah.