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Football Sunday
Oct. 29th, 2006 08:49 pmIt was a family weekend. Mom came to visit yesterday. Mostly, she came because she knew how frazzled I was about the leak in the kitchen. But also, she loves to Swiffer and the reno dust created a prime Swiffering opportunity. Mom Swiffers and dusts whenever she visits me -- it could be a commentary about my housekeeping abilities, or just the knowledge that I have hardwood floors and a very hairy cat, while she has neither. Anyway, I gave her the poster I had made for her birthday, which she loved. [Her birthday was a couple of weeks ago, and the poster wasn't ready then...but fear not, gentle readers! Her real gift (spa day) and flowers were delivered timely :)] Mom brought me freshly filleted rock fish (stripped bass). Yum. Guess what I'll be cooking for dinner :) If I feel really ambitious, I'll buy some crab meat and stuff the fillets with crab imperial.
We all have favorite relatives, I think, even if we don't want to admit it. There are family members we love because they are family and we have no choice, and there are family members we would choose as our friends even if there was no blood relationship. Today my favorite aunt and uncle were in town (their daughter had a cheerleading competition -- it doesn't thrill them that she chooses cheerleading over a fall sport, but they support it because it is what she wants; equal time to sports and activities for both kids). They dropped Hollee at the arena, then we went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. As usual, after the bread and about half of the entree, we were too stuffed to eat cheesecake. So we took it to go. Yay for vanilla bean cheesecake with whipped cream! Even the Goofy Cat got some.
After lunch, Kellee went to the arena to watch the competition, while Jim and I watched football and chatted. Jim is my boy-uncle. He's 11 years older than me, and I remember him as a kid who would rake leaves into a pile for me to jump into. He's very grey now, a responsible father of two, but I remember the boy and young man who would take me swimming and bought me my first grown up bike and took me cruising around the neighborhood in his white 'Vette. We see each other fairly regularly, but it tends to be in large family groups. It was kinda cool just to hang out and chat about work and home and family and other stuff. Like, he now has a convertible Triumph. And he'll be coaching Hollee's basketball team again. And how he's irritated by bandwagon Chicago Bears fans -- he's been a fan for 25 years, through thick and thin, from Ditka and Payton to Grossman and Urlacher, and resents the fair-weather fans appearing now that the team is 7-0. They are getting geared up for college visiting and applications since their son, Daniel, the cutest boy in the world, is a junior in high school. If I lived closer to them (like my mom would prefer), I would know all that stuff already...but I'm happy where I am.
Whenever I roll my eyes about the flaky aunt or the almost-stranger uncle, I remind myself that the same luck of the DNA draw that gave me them also gave me Jim and Kellee. Pretty lucky, I think.
We all have favorite relatives, I think, even if we don't want to admit it. There are family members we love because they are family and we have no choice, and there are family members we would choose as our friends even if there was no blood relationship. Today my favorite aunt and uncle were in town (their daughter had a cheerleading competition -- it doesn't thrill them that she chooses cheerleading over a fall sport, but they support it because it is what she wants; equal time to sports and activities for both kids). They dropped Hollee at the arena, then we went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. As usual, after the bread and about half of the entree, we were too stuffed to eat cheesecake. So we took it to go. Yay for vanilla bean cheesecake with whipped cream! Even the Goofy Cat got some.
After lunch, Kellee went to the arena to watch the competition, while Jim and I watched football and chatted. Jim is my boy-uncle. He's 11 years older than me, and I remember him as a kid who would rake leaves into a pile for me to jump into. He's very grey now, a responsible father of two, but I remember the boy and young man who would take me swimming and bought me my first grown up bike and took me cruising around the neighborhood in his white 'Vette. We see each other fairly regularly, but it tends to be in large family groups. It was kinda cool just to hang out and chat about work and home and family and other stuff. Like, he now has a convertible Triumph. And he'll be coaching Hollee's basketball team again. And how he's irritated by bandwagon Chicago Bears fans -- he's been a fan for 25 years, through thick and thin, from Ditka and Payton to Grossman and Urlacher, and resents the fair-weather fans appearing now that the team is 7-0. They are getting geared up for college visiting and applications since their son, Daniel, the cutest boy in the world, is a junior in high school. If I lived closer to them (like my mom would prefer), I would know all that stuff already...but I'm happy where I am.
Whenever I roll my eyes about the flaky aunt or the almost-stranger uncle, I remind myself that the same luck of the DNA draw that gave me them also gave me Jim and Kellee. Pretty lucky, I think.
