8 posts tagged “family”
First a little housekeeping:
Next: What "Well Told Tales" loved, "Alfred Hitchcock Magazine" was less than charmed by. I got a form rejection letter today (thanks, but doesn't fit our needs, etc.). But the rejection is tempered: Some nice editor wrote a note at the bottom, saying, "I really enjoyed 'Home for the Holidays' and look forward to another funny story from you." There's a signature, but this guy was clearly a doctor in a previous life because it's illegible.
What's funny about being considered funny is that the story isn't really written for guffaws; it's dark humor at best. But, whatever, I'll take what I can. I recently read advice that following a rejection the thing you do immediately is ship the story out elsewhere, so "Ellery Queen," stand back!
And at last: Right, so Passover in Pflugerville and Round Rock, the two small suburbs outside of Austin that draw me nigh for major holidays. Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age, or maybe it's just useless to swim against the tide all the time, but other than the long journey down there, I'm not minding visiting East Texas so much any more. I kind of have a curiosity about the place, and want to see some of the smaller towns. Maybe even watch a real tumbleweed go by if possible.
Well, I got some of that this visit. It was just a three-day thing, so Mom and I headed out to Greuneon Saturday for their once-a-month outdoor marketplace.
But it was a lovely warm day and we found a secret parking spot that was probably not fully allowed but nobody ticketed us, we got chips and cheese at the local Mexican joint and made plans to come back another day because we had to leave early enough to be home for Passover.
Now, Passover is many things and we all ate some amazing food and read the Haggadah and tried to restrain a 1-year old while keeping a 4-year old interested in the proceedings (both succeeded in limited ways). My brother makes a kick-ass matzo ball soup, and he even bought me a great big slab of fish for my portion (since I don't eat the brisket). You can't say they don't make you feel at home. We even got Nat the baby to speak briefly: Syd started making up knock-knock jokes ("Knock-knock!" "Who's there?" "Table!" "Table who?" (long pause) "Table with the salt on it! Bwah-ha!") and suddenly Nat said, "Knock knock." Amazing.
They are, however, raising a complete hellion risk-taking giggle-puss. Craig asked if I wanted to come with him and Sydney to get the mail. On their golf cart. I've talked about the fact that he has a golf cart to get the mail before, but little did I realize that the journey to the actual mailbox was, shall we say, circuitous. I dare you to watch this video and hear my niece laugh even as she heads into the "deep, dark forest" and not feel a little bit joyous yourself. Please to enjoy, but please don't tell her mother.
Craig tolerantly followed us around as we pointed at Clydesdales (not usually a sea creature, but Busch owns the park), Beluga whales, dolphins, alligators, and Shamu himself.
So we went on it.
Three times.
I kid you not. As soon as we got off, she'd say "again!" and then not even flinch when we said we'd have to wait in line again. (Admittedly, the lines weren't long, but what 4-year old has patience?)
Then, Craig did the thing everybody wants their father to do whenever they theme park that sells gigantic prizes.
He won her a giant Shamu.
(The gray one she's holding in the picture is a dolphin she won herself, she never let go of it the whole time -- except on the Shamu rollercoaster -- but there's just no comparison: Shamu totally blew everything else away.) Craig humped it (I know there's a humpback whale joke in there somewhere) all over the park, even setting it down for the actual Shamu show in one of the bleacher seats.
And really, while I've got all of this shpilkis over is this humane to make animals perform for us, watching the great Orcas do their shit completely blew my mind. You can't help but envy their trainers, who get to ride on them or with them or on their noses, and when the whales flop themselves into the air or onto the platforms you can't help but get excited, too.
Personally, I had little tears in my eyes because they're just so beautiful.
No wonder we had a sleepy young lady who conked out on the way home. Oh, and Sydney took a nap too.
One final note: We did have to make a pit stop on the way home. And while there, I noticed how we'd pulled into a gas station that had this classic BBQ locale parked right next door:
Now, that's Texas, right there for you.
Never even saw Austin. In three days I hit: Pflugerville, Gruene (pronounced "Green" but you know we had fun calling it "Groin"), Round Rock, and Sea World.
My niece Sydney (at left) may in fact have been more tired post-Shamu (and really, is there more tired than falling asleep with half a chocolate chip cookie in your mouth?) but only by degrees.
Will report back more soon, but one more photo to share:
Then there was ham and turkey breast and stuffing and corn (with a whole stick of butter!) and gravy and cranberry and pickles and rolls and mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and I think that's the whole schmear but I could have forgotten something.
And there were mournful dogs on the floor begging for scraps and there were two children one of whom watched TV and one of whom looked at us solemnly with her ear infection and sniffly nose and ate mashed potatoes for the first time.
Then there was rest of a kind.
Then there was sleepytime for children.
Then there was "Grey's Anatomy."
Then there was Dutch apple pie and ice cream. And green tea chocolates.
Then there was contented happiness before driving home.
And that was Thanksgiving this year, in Austin, TX.
Tonight, there are leftovers. So we do it all again in about 45 minutes.
Hope yours was as delightful and tasty and everything else special, that nothing broke and everything that was consumed stayed down and that you have leftovers.
And that you have as much fun as my almost-year-old niece Natalie did when we turned her upside down and shook her for quarters.
Words guaranteed to evoke mixed emotions once you've heard them for the first time:
Mom telling me: "(Your stepfather) reads your blog every day."
Words guaranteed to evoke a profound sense of relief upon hearing them for the first time:
Mom again: "I don't have time to read it myself; I don't spend that much time with the computer."
So hi, Larry!
On the one hand ....
Stubb's was closed.
On the other ....
Rudy's was not.
So....
I had ribs. Yay! Burp!
On the one hand ...
I dreamed about a young Michael Caine, and we made plans for a dinner date.
On the other hand ...
He didn't make it into the real world, so, no ribs for him.
On the one hand ....
My mother stewed all night and after I came back from working out blasted me and her hubby for "touching her stuff" last night (while we packed it away so the furniture could get rearranged). Though she was present for the entire experience, she said we were "sneaky" about it.
On the other ....
I yelled right back. Then was told not to be "fresh." So I told her I was old enough to yell back and if she didn't like it, I'd stay at my brother's tonight. She got over things, more or less pronto, and we went shopping. For more "things" which can't be touched without permission, and maybe not even then. (This store was awesome, and it's nice to go to one of those places with someone who finds The Last Supper After Dinner Mints a funny novelty, rather than something seen in 100 other shops already.)
On the one hand ....
I bought half price Easter Candy: Chocolate Marshmallow delights! (In a match between Russell Stover and Hershey, RS wins, because its shell-to-marshmallow texture ratio is pleasingly complementary.)
On the other....
I didn't buy enough half price marshmallow delights. Woe is me!
Still, overall, a good day.
Still trying to process much of the weekend. Still down in Austin. Are we done yet?
For years I've heard of friends talk about their crazy families and how they drive them crazy even though they still (in theory) love one another, and how glad they are to get back home. I've always been sympathetic, if not entirely empathetic, because at root I've usually had some comfort derived from a Good Visit Home.
However, I'm feeling that less and less since the whole Texas uprooting. And this has nothing to do with Texas or Austin itself. It has to do with a balance being shifted. And since we're still in the wobble between balancing acts, I don't think it's fair to come to any real conclusions. Only that this is the first real visit I've had to the family where all things being equal, I'd rather have been in Philadelphia. Or New York.
There are many pluses to being down here. My brother sets a lovely dinner table for nine guests -- including four children, two neighbors, their relatives and us -- and is actually an excellent cook (though next year he could dial back the pepper in the soup). My SIL and I get along well even if I don't feel I know her very well; generally she's open to ideas and I love that she loves music. And watching my nieces grow (Syd in particular) is fun, even when they're cranky and throwing themselves on the floor at the PetSmart because we didn't buy them (okay, Syd, since Nat is too young to do anything other than eat, sleep and expectorate) a horse action figure. Side note: Horse Love has hit Syd already, and she's just over three. An ad for a horse trading card set came on TV last night and she was mesmerized. When it ended she said the horses made her sad. And yet she was delighted. It was interesting to see that horse love manifest, because I knew exactly what she meant.
So there's that. But my mother is a different story; she's just all over the place emotionally, not settling in well here, and not doing much about it. She says over and over how depressed she is, and when you say "well, maybe you should see someone," she just kind of nods and later on you hear how depressed she is again. And she's becoming more and more inflexible -- and more like her mother in her later years. Tonight after a furniture-moving incident that she didn't intervene on but which had her pissed at us for not asking first, I felt a weird sensation akin to when I was younger and I knew I was in trouble but I wouldn't know what for. But she doesn't yell now because we're too old for that, she just gets surly and quiet and sits on the couch and doesn't say anything except to oy and vey and say how this makes her more depressed.
On top of all of this, my local friends in Maryland, who I could always see when I went home for a visit, and whose presence balanced whatever stresses were going on at my mom's, are no longer visit-able from Austin.
This is not fun. And it's not fun to come home to. And while family life is never fun all over, it should be some of the time. Things I do as a matter of course seem to annoy her -- like, say, using the computer instead of watching hours of TV -- and things she does like she's always done -- like asking me where I'm going every time I leave the room for 30 seconds -- annoy me no end. Her volatility is unpleasant, her moodiness unbearable. I'm not sure where this is all going, but it's not going to get better until it gets worse, and that really doesn't feel like a place I feel like going right now. Plus, there's a limited amount I can do to make a 60+year old woman do what she doesn't want to do from a thousand-odd miles away.
So, a surprise in the messing with of Texas. As it turns out, I don't mind Austin so much at all. But suddenly, I'm not all that into the reason I came down here in the first place.
I won't be back until Thanksgiving. And I wish I could leave in the morning.
You may just be a day old, but someone's already blogging about you! How exciting is that? Who knows, by the time you're old enough to know what a blog is, we might all be doing it merely by thinking of posting -- at least once the brain chips settle in.
I was in New York when you came into the world, so I've only heard things secondhand about you. I know you showed up with a full head of hair (much like your big sis over there on the left) and came out as a Caesarian (remind me to tell you the Stephen Wright joke about how he was born Caesarian and now always has to leave a house by the window). How because of your other-exit entry into the world you're looking amazingly well and not all pinched up, and how you've already stuck out your tongue at grandma.
In New York it was very, very cold when you were born, and it snowed that same night. I walked outside with my dog for her business and just exclaimed, "Snow!" because it was our first real fall of the year. I hope every day holds something that unique for you, where you just burst out with the obvious because it's such a delight. For a long time, I think it will.
There were a lot of other wonderful, and some not-so-wonderful things that happened on your birthday. A man named "Scooter" was on trial and was being called a fall guy; our country considered further funding a war in Iraq that many consider ill-conceived. There was a Republican in the White House, but there was a woman leading up the House of Representatives, and only one of them has been in Iraq so far this year. I hope by the time you're big enough the idea of a woman running either house is so commonplace that what I've just said seems boring.
But some really nice things also happened and continue to happen: People are making beautiful music and putting it up for free on the Internet (which will also be part of that brain chip we'll probably already have when you're grown), I'm throwing an Oscar party at the end of next month where we'll all watch a classy lady win for playing a Queen, and the Fug Girls said your namesake (well, middle-name namesake) is the kind of woman we should all aspire to look like, minus so much chin. And I think they've found the cure for cancer. In a generic drug. There is love and life and snow for everyone.
I'm glad you're here, and I'm not-so-secretly glad you're a girl. Girls are more interesting, I think. But you do have some big shoes to fill, because Sydney your sister has been delighting and amusing and weirding us all out for three years, and you're going to be playing catch up the rest of your life. But the good news is, you always get to be the youngest. You're the last of your line. I've only ever been the big sister, so you'll have to look to your dad for the younger sibling take on things, but if I can offer advice, I'd say: Don't bug her when she tells you to buzz off. And take her seriously, or she'll clomp you in the head, and get in trouble later for it, and that's not a spiral you want to get into.
But that's not the only reason: You need to learn to be yourself. Don't rely on others to entertain or validate you. You've got a little under 18 years to figure out who you are and what you want to do, and you'll make mistakes and piss some people off and most certainly find ways to make them fall in love with you. You'll fall in love too, and have heartbreak and euphoria and be startled and scared and delirious and sad and you'll find that one song you can listen to over and over until your parents yell at you to shut it off. (Unless it's on the brain chip and they can't hear it.) You'll be called all sorts of names, some good and some bad, so only listen to the ones that feel right to you. Most importantly only listen to the ones that echo what you're already feeling deep down inside. Underneath it you'll still be my niece, Natalie Reese, and you will always remind me of peanut butter cups and adorable Southern actresses.
So that's a good thing. You're a good thing. And I can't wait to meet you in March.
Welcome!
Love,
Yer Wacky Auntie
Little did they know that Texas messes with you, baby!
The Austin area of Texas has now had more snow this year than New York City.
I joked to my mom last night that if this was a soap opera, Kris would be forced to have the baby at home because of a major snowstorm.
Clearly, someone's going to need some sweaters.
