Becky Says...

July 2003

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July 19

There's a reunion this weekend, of my mother's father's family. It will be up in the northern part of the NC mountains, which is one of my favorite places to go. But I'm not going, because the timing is dreadful.

I mean that two ways, actually. The day and the time are both dreadful this year. Without getting into specifics, it's too far to make a day trip, and my schedule didn't work out to take any extra time.

I will miss getting to see the cousins, and hope to see them, in smaller batches, in the months to come. It's always good to get caught up with them, and to meet the new ones. Of course, I hope all who are able to attend the reunion have a wonderful time and safe travel.

But truth be told, I'm not as sad that I won't be there as I might be if the thing wasn't always a potluck affair. With a great deal of passion, I hate potlucks. I hate trying to take food. I hate worrying about insulting someone if I really can't stand their trademark dish. I hate worrying about who might not have been conscientious about hot things hot and cold things cold. You name it, I hate it about potlucks.

In fact, I don't bother anymore, in terms of the family gatherings. The last time I went to one of the reunions, I stopped at a fast food place for an early lunch, then made sure I got to the reunion about thirty minutes after it started. That let me sit with my closest cousins, have a glass of tea to be in the spirit of the meal, and enjoy the company instead of worrying about anything related to food, including trying to keep any errant bugs out of the plate in front of me.

A couple of people pretty much figured out that I had been late on purpose, and why, but no one complained. I think they gave me a pass based on distance driven. Either that, or they figured I don't know how to cook. Either way is fine by me.

Of course, there are moments in those gatherings that drive me insane. One such the last time was when several people had childhood pictures of my mother and her fraternal twin sister, and wanted me to identify the girls. Some of the photos were new to me, but some I had seen many times.

Based on the photos I had seen, I was fairly good at figuring out which twin was which in the unfamiliar ones. But I hated being put on the spot like that, and I really hated being second-guessed on my conclusions, by others who didn't know the two as children. I had to mind my manners, but I wanted to start kicking butt and taking names.

And there was family-tree cousin. He had been doing some work on the project, and was trying to entice people to look at the results...which were only available on the screen of his notebook computer. He explained that a printout would be four hundred pages.

My brain tuned out at that point, because I didn't want to read that much in bad lighting. Nor did I want to try to remember from one screen to the next what it was I was trying to read. I made a polite excuse and moved far, far away from the table where he and the hard disk full of relatives were holding court.

In case you were wondering, those segments are not the ones I will regret having to miss!

* * * * * * * * * * *

If you're local, you have a chance this weekend to see Patrick's play, The Illusion of You, which TeKay directs. It and nine others make up the Ten by Ten Festival in Carrboro, NC. Information is on the Festival's webpage.

Text © copyright 2000-2003 Becky