Put down

My mom just called me. She and my dad are coming back from his secretary's wedding and she wanted to let me know the details for the family reunion tomorrow. Of course that isn't the only subject she brought up.

"It was a beautiful wedding," she says. "I have so much stuff to show you from the wedding."

"Really?" I ask passively.

"Beautiful but costly. Luckily the bride and groom are well-to-do so they can afford the money they poured into it."

And there it is... just a few sentences and I feel inferior to a girl I don't even like. Oh, I just can't wait for the hour-long drive to the reunion tomorrow.

Return of the Mommi

"Close your eyes," my mom said to my brother as she came downstairs in her pajamas, carrying a load of laundry she was going to put in.

"I could just look away," he replied.

"Actually," I said as I looked up more than six inches to meet his eyes, "you could just not look down." We all laughed. My mom tried to seem indignant even though there is no disputing my brother's height advantage.

"Yeah Mom, if I don't look down, it is more like a blonde blob bobbing in front of me. Kind of like a blonde ewok." I laughed, encouraging him. He continued, "We'll get you a vest, a spear and a hood and we can call you 'Mum Mum'."

Freaked out

This song came on, just after taking a call from my mom as she followed an ambulance to hospital with my grandmother in the back.

I know that my grandmother does everything right--eating well, walking with her dog twice day, and has barely been sick a day in her life. This situation should have a positive outcome. But I'm still waiting on pins and needles. Please think positive thoughts for my grandmother.

While you're sharing those positive thoughts, please spare some for F's grandmother and R's father who are both having surgery or preparing for surgery today.

Good news: my grandmother's appendix ruptured but it has been removed and she seems to be doing well in recovery. F's grandmother is also out of surgery and doing well so far. Ironically they'll be recovering in the same hospital for the next week.

Please keep R's father in your thoughts while he's under the knife today.

Singing grace

There are certain holidays each year that we celebrate with my dad’s family, the family that is too close to be described as extended but it would confuse other people if I described them as immediate family. As I’ve grown up I’ve learned that this closeness and these traditions aren’t “normal”.

Apparently most families don’t sing “God Bless America” every year before they sit down to hamburgers and hot dogs on the 4th of July. Every year my grandfather would start the family singing that song, despite the fact that he couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. After my grandfather died, the responsibility fell to my mom.

So this year my mom will lead our cacophony of voices in "God Bless America" and I will be proud that we aren't your normal family.