family reunion 2005 (entry still in progres)

written at 12:14 p.m. on 07.29.05

Note: I have added on to this entry since the last time it was posted. To skip ahead to the second installment (beginning with Sunday), click here. Otherwise, read on as normal.

I have returned!! And the crowd goes wild! ... AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!! .. Stupid crickets.

So, the family reunion was entertaining and exhausting and quite memorable. I feel compelled to make you a pretty family tree so you have an idea of how everything works and yada yada.

Click here to view the family tree!!

I think I'll go through this on a daily kinda basis..

Saturday

I stayed up packing on Saturday morning until 4:30am. I woke up around eight o'clock in the morning to finish packing the freshly-laundered clothes I had cleaned the night before and to get a nice big breakfast before the flight. We left my house at 10:30am, as scheduled.

Five minutes later, I realized I had left my deodorant in my medicine cabinet. Yippee.

Fortunately, that was the only thing I left behind. My insanely detailed packing list worked once again. I simply neglected to put deodorant on the list. Silly me.

Wandering around the airport with my mom and brother is no treat. We said goodbye to my dad, and that's the exact moment my mom snapped into "wigged-out travel mode." She pretty much can't focus on anything, though she wants to focus on everything. Trying to get her attention is futile, and trying to keep her happy is a delicate procedure.

I was mildly amused to note that Southwest at Midway Airport had planted rocking chairs at every gate. It was funny to see people pass by the rocking chair, look at it with longing in their eyes, wander past it a few times, sit down with a twinge of guilt for a few minutes, and the get up to sit in a normal seat.

WHOA.. room temperature Frappuccinos SUCK! Bleh. Gross gross gross. I was drinking one, but got distracted by something and didn't finish. I just took a sip without thinking, and voila! My tastebuds will be finding a new home tomorrow.

Anyway, back to the flight. Due to turbulence, we were only served water and peanuts. My mom likes to be dramatic sometimes, so we heard that "only water and peanuts" story like.. 800 times during the week. My story of the week was more entertaining and grew as the week went on. It started when I was standing in line at the baggaged claim in Nashville airport and the air conditioner vent above my head dripped on me!! It was cold and wet and not a grand way to start a family reunion.

Fifteen minutes later, my aunt Ellen showed up on the scene, toting nothing but a carry-on and a purse. Due to one of the craziest rearrangements of a schedule I have ever heard, she wound up flying through Chicago instead of North Carolina, and her luggage never made it past Chicago. I was shocked to find that her daughters, Claire and Amy, wouldn't be joining us at the reunion. Her son, Stuart, and her husband, Bruce, never come, and Stuart's girlfriend is due to have a baby anyway. But her two girls almost always come. They're my back-up babysitters for when I don't feel like watching all 800 rugrats anymore. Plus, my friend Haynes wanted me to talk up my cousin Amy a bit since she lives kinda nearby him and is incredibly gorgeous.

Moving on. The guy at the rent-a-car place was an elderly Southern chap who was cute as all get-out in an old-man kinda way. You just wanna adopt them as your grandparents sometimes.

After we escaped the airport, Ellen, my mom, my bro, and I drove over to the nearby Cracker Barrel, where we were scheduled to meet my aunt Julie, her two kids (Jenna and Wesley), and my grandparents. Now, Jenna and Wesley seem to take a wee bit of time to warm up to relatives after a bit of absence, but thankfully that wasn't the case this time. I went to their house four or five times this past school year, so it's not like I hadn't seen them recently.

My mom and Ellen took Jenna and I in the rental car, and my grandparents took Julie and the boys in a vehicle they had borrowed from a neighbor. The drive from Nashville to my grandparents' house is several hours, and I was expecting it to be somewhat awkward and very boring. However, Jenna and I got to talking and just chatted amiably the whole way there. She's going to be in third grade in the fall, but we still found a lot to talk about in common. Maybe that's because I've been known to watch the Disney channel on occasion, and I'm not exactly the most grown-up person in the world sometimes. Whatever the reason, it was a lot of fun talking with her.

We got to my grandma's house, and everyone was in a splendid mood. People began getting ready to crash for the night, and Jenna and I sprawled out on the floor with a fashion magazine, commenting on what we liked and disliked about every outfit.

At some point, the three sisters (Ellen, Julie, and my mom) got to talking about FONDUE, and someone said something about COLD FONDEU. That prompted the question, "Is there such a thing as a cold FONDEAU?" Much debate occured over this, as Julie (the red-head) tried to convince the two blondes that Cool Whip was cold FONDEU. Jenna and I looked up from our magazine long enough to give them a good and proper "Y'all are insane" stare.

When everyone realized they were giggly from exhaustion, we headed off to bed.. And so ended the first day of the family reunion.

Sunday

Sunday morning started off with a major war over the bathrooms at my Grandma's house. Since nobody had been moved into their cabins yet, Ellen, Julie, Jenna, Wesley, my mom, Adam (my bro), and I all had to shower and dress and blow-dry hair and the like before church. Needless to say, it was a bit of a mess. I just went to church with wet hair because I could not for the life of me stand being in the bathroom for any longer than necessary. The guest bathroom at my grandma's house is on the small side, to the point where I feel a bit claustrophobic after having spent any amount of time in it. Furthermore, it was about 800 degrees that week, rainy (so it was constantly so humid you felt like you were walking through clouds of sweat), and my grandparents don't have air conditioning in their house. So... imagine being in a tiny bathroom after just showering and then looking at your wet hair and wondering whether or not you care enough to blow-dry it. Yeah, exactly. Me neither.

While trying to figure out how to haul everyone to church, my grandma said she wanted me to drive her Mustang to church. She said that she and Jenna would come with me and that the rest could ride in the rental car (my grandpa had gone to church early to sing in the choir). I had this petrified look on my face. I haven't really driven in a year. I didn't have a car at school, and I haven't exactly gone anywhere to hang out with people, so.. Yeah, I was feeling a bit nervous holding the lives of my only grandmother and one of my favorite cousins in my hands. Thankfully, they live in the middle of nowhere, have speed limits that don't matter, do not have cops, and don't live far from church.

We arrived at my grandparents' church safely, and immediately I scoped out two hot guys. Being surrounded by pretty aunts and a cute little female cousin, I was looking good but unapproachable. Sad day. The service was .. old. I'm not sure how else to put that. Tennessee is famous for being home to America's elderly folks, and this church is where those folks go to worship. The senior adult choir was scheduled to sing twice that morning, and my gosh, that was two times too many. Apparently, loss of hearing affects your ability to follow along with music. Huh. Who'd a'thunk? The whole family consumed an entire pew (comfy pews, I'll give them that), and Jenna and I found ourselves at the end. We spent every seated moment doodling on our bulletins. I whipped out some dang good anime faces and a pretty good sketch of Siamese twins (a two-headed monster, really.. per Jenna's request).

After church, we headed off to Pizza Hut, my grandma well aware that I would need a pizza fix to get me through the week. Jenna managed to spill my drink on my shoe after I accompanied her at the salad bar (12 and under require adult supervision.. my aunt Julie reeaalllly likes to shove me with the kids a lot, so this was of course another great opportunity for that). The place had low ceilings with ceiling fans. Yeah, that's a disaster waiting to happen. Even worse, they had low-hung streamers off the ceiling and the ceiling fans. I cannot tell you how many times I ran into a streamer that day, popping up and down after Jenna. Julie gave quarters to both Wesley and Jenna for the solitary arcade game and the get-a-temporary-tattoo machines.

Walking out of Pizza Hut, I got dripped on by the one spot on the entire roof that had a drip happening. That would be the second dripping incident in a 24-hour time span. It was bound to be a wet week for me. Jenna had scored two temporary tattoos at Pizza Hut--a cute butterfly and an ugly sun. She gave me the ugly sun... I think it is still in my purse. She insisted on having it placed on her lower back to match mine, and her mother insisted that I do the tattooing. It was really hard not to roll my eyes that week, just let me tell you.

Anywho, after the tattooing, we just kinda hung around and played Boggle for a while. That was the last time I recall getting to do anything with the adults for a long time. We all rode over to the cabins, since they were open for checking in, finally. Again, I drove the Mustang, this time so I could bail early if need be. My mom planned on staying over at the cabins with the rental until Mark, Di, Sandra, and Natalie showed up late that evening.

Jenna and I sat on the dock for a good long while, once again finding ourselves conversing easily and comfortably about a wide variety of topics. We were having a blast, as two girls chatting are bound to do, when Julie and Ellen and my mom came strolling by to say that we were all going for a walk to the park. All the kids looked up in protest, but the mothers were insistent that it was a good idea. Good idea my butt. I soon got bored of watching Jenna and Wesley play tetherball, so Adam and I walked back over to the Mustang and left.

I spent a good chunk of time writing up a 6-page long email to Jason, who had written me an email at least that long that morning. (Jenna had been hanging by my elbow the whole time I was trying to read it, so I didn't dare make her wait longer by typing up an adequate response.) My grandpa tends to hang in his study all the live-long day, napping and chilling at the computer, so I couldn't really butt in there to use the internet again. I was just coming in to wash my face and get ready for the night when my mom arrived and cut me off at the bathroom. Wary of upsetting my mother, who is always edgy and more unpredictable than usual when at these family things, I checked in on the study and found the computer open. I was half-way through typing up my email when my mom came into the study. She did her trademark move of gliding over on air (so I can't hear her) and then getting my attention with her insanely powerful glare (I notice it when my clothes start to sizzle against my skin). I figured she was antsy to get to bed, since it was late for her, so I told her my predicament. She impatiently waited as I finished the email, then rushed me out of the house before I could even brush my teeth. "I need to lock up the house and go to bed. You should've gotten ready earlier." Brushing one's teeth with the aide of a water bottle works, but I still had other things I would've liked to do before going to bed.

Grumble grumble.. I fell asleep after reading some Fellowship of the Ring, so I did get to bed on a happy note. And.. end of day two.

To be continued again because I'm too lazy to write another day's worth of stuff.