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Blech
I hate colds, I really do. Most of the time when I get a cold, I end up with it going into my ears, which means I can't hear. I hate not being able to hear, it sucks. So far it hasn't gotten that bad, but I feel a lot stuffier today than yesterday. What's up with that? I really thought I was getting better...
Okay, obligatory whining out of the way, substantial post time. I'm long overdue, I know.
Last weekend, my family (minus my brother Bevan who needed to stay home and study - grad school is taking up most of his time and energy these days, but including Brian and Zack) went down to Kingsburg (south of Fresno) for a family reunion. My maternal grandfather's family (the Sagasers) has two family reunions every year, one the Saturday after Thanksgiving and one on Palm Sunday. Several years ago, my immediate family agreed to make it a priority to go to the Thanksgiving reunion every year. (For reference, this was what I posted about it last year.)
This year the reunion was held at the Kingsburg Gun Club, which is actually a fairly appropriate location, considering what that side of the family is like. My grandfather and I had a huge argument once about gun control and have successfully avoided discussing it ever since. I have nothing against hunting as long as it's done in moderation, but I really don't see any need for people to be able to own handguns or assault rifles. Owning guns and hunting is part of Sagaser family culture; they are a rough and tumble bunch, hardy outdoorsman survivalist types who've variously raised horses, gone rock hunting (my mom's cousin apparently has a huge rock collection), owned mines and hunted on a regular basis. I can remember visiting my grandparents and testing my rapidly expanding cooking skills on things like pheasant, quail, bear, deer and other game. Sagaser men are big guys in cowboy hats who speak in gruff voices and tell tall tales about the outdoors. They are a colorful bunch and are rabidly loyal to family. Unless you do something treacherous, like squabble over the gun collection which is part of someone's estate. Then they stop speaking to you for years and years. My mom's rock hunting cousin was ostracized for years over the gun collection fiasco - no one could agree on who it belonged to, and the family which got there first claimed it, much to my grandfather's annoyance. Anyway, they're over it now and they sit around swapping tall tales again.
The gun club was actually a pretty nice location, in many ways. They have a nice hall with a huge kitchen and a large fireplace, and there are showers and camping space. My mom's cousins (the ones who organized the event) stayed in RVs, while we brought our tents. We camped once before on Thanksgiving weekend several years ago, and it was just our luck that there was an arctic freeze that weekend. I hate trying to sleep while it feels like my face is going to freeze and crack apart. It feels awful and I usually get sick. Camping in the summer, when it's nice and warm, is much better. Anyway, we figured it wouldn't be so bad this time and Dad said he would buy some heaters so it should have been okay. Well, the heaters turned out to be kinda useless. My family took pity on my whiny grumpy self the second night and said I could put the heater near my bed, and I basically put it up next to my face and I was mostly warm enough. Until the heater went off. And of course then I had to pee, so I got up and chilled myself thoroughly walking to the bathroom. I was wearing a ton of layers too! I had on longjohns, my heavy knit skirt, socks, a camisole top, warm flannel nightgown, a velvet long-sleeved shirt and my sweatshirt with the hood up. I was inside a sleeping bag and underneath a thermal blanket which I pulled up over my face until I felt like I couldn't breathe (normally I sleep with my head and arms outside the covers; I hate feeling restricted or smothered when I sleep). And I was still cold!!! Eventually I gave up and went and slept in my truck, running the heater every once in a while. I got a few hours of sleep that way.
The reunion itself was pretty nice. I made my tasty barbecued turkey with the spicy orange glaze and of course it was done an hour late because we weren't adding coals often enough. But it still tasted good, and being late meant there was more of it to eat, hehe. The food was the usual fare of stuffing, turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green beans and assorted casseroles, followed by a variety of cakes, pies and cookies for dessert. And Uncle Doug's ice cream! Uncle Doug makes two kinds of homemade ice cream every year. The last few years, the flavors have been maple nut and eggnog, though he used to make different ones from time to time. I love the maple nut, though the walnuts leave little skins that are hard to get out of my teeth. I had to brush after I ate it.
The other highlight of the weekend was that my cousin came for the first time. He's the cousin closest in age to me - he's one month younger. He recently moved to Las Vegas from Baton Rouge, Louisiana (he moved shortly before the hurricane, actually). He's gay and he and his boyfriend have been living together for several years now. My immediate family knows as does his mother, but we're the only ones. My grandmother asked my mom when he was getting married and my mom pointed out that I wasn't married either. Yay. At least she dodged the question. I could tell he was kinda nervous about it - I made some surreptitious comment about the pride parade and his eyes got as big as saucers. Brian and I went out for coffee with him later, which was nice, because we got to chat a bit more openly, but I felt really lame and dumb because I was tired and sort of out of it. Later on, I thought of a bunch of things I could have said or asked him to be more social, but at the time I didn't say much. So frustrating. Hopefully I can persuade him to come visit sometime and then we can get a bit more caught up.
A bit out of it and socially lame is actually how I felt most of the weekend. I didn't really visit much with anyone. I guess I'm feeling bad about being unemployed and only having sort of an idea about what I want to do with myself. I should have been proudly bragging about having graduated, but that feels like a distant thing. It is my major accomplishment this last year, though. There are lots of other things going on in my life and in my head that I just don't feel like talking to relatives about yet, too, so that compounded it a bit yet. Some of my dreams are too fragile to share just yet.
My mom introduced Brian and Zack to people as if they were part of our family, which pleased me. Zack had a really great time, I think. He played with the other kids pretty much the whole time. He did wake up in the middle of the night and freak out about the cold, which was horrible, but he gave the weekend a good review. My best conversation was about him, too; one of my mom's cousins asked about how it felt to be pseudo-stepmom ('mom-by-default' I think she said) and I talked about how it was both terrifying and exciting. Zack is really growing up by leaps and bounds, and it's amazing to me how we can have these really interesting almost adult conversations about things like friendship and God and politics and various other topics. He's very sweet and he adores me - the feeling is mutual. I'm very blessed that these two guys came into my life when they did. I never imagined myself raising someone else's child as my own, and I feel totally inadequate to the job most of the time, but I still feel it's an amazing gift. His mom is really missing out, but her loss is my gain.
Hope you guys all had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend. Here's to family, love, friendship and loyalty, and a great holiday season.
*hugs*
Okay, obligatory whining out of the way, substantial post time. I'm long overdue, I know.
Last weekend, my family (minus my brother Bevan who needed to stay home and study - grad school is taking up most of his time and energy these days, but including Brian and Zack) went down to Kingsburg (south of Fresno) for a family reunion. My maternal grandfather's family (the Sagasers) has two family reunions every year, one the Saturday after Thanksgiving and one on Palm Sunday. Several years ago, my immediate family agreed to make it a priority to go to the Thanksgiving reunion every year. (For reference, this was what I posted about it last year.)
This year the reunion was held at the Kingsburg Gun Club, which is actually a fairly appropriate location, considering what that side of the family is like. My grandfather and I had a huge argument once about gun control and have successfully avoided discussing it ever since. I have nothing against hunting as long as it's done in moderation, but I really don't see any need for people to be able to own handguns or assault rifles. Owning guns and hunting is part of Sagaser family culture; they are a rough and tumble bunch, hardy outdoorsman survivalist types who've variously raised horses, gone rock hunting (my mom's cousin apparently has a huge rock collection), owned mines and hunted on a regular basis. I can remember visiting my grandparents and testing my rapidly expanding cooking skills on things like pheasant, quail, bear, deer and other game. Sagaser men are big guys in cowboy hats who speak in gruff voices and tell tall tales about the outdoors. They are a colorful bunch and are rabidly loyal to family. Unless you do something treacherous, like squabble over the gun collection which is part of someone's estate. Then they stop speaking to you for years and years. My mom's rock hunting cousin was ostracized for years over the gun collection fiasco - no one could agree on who it belonged to, and the family which got there first claimed it, much to my grandfather's annoyance. Anyway, they're over it now and they sit around swapping tall tales again.
The gun club was actually a pretty nice location, in many ways. They have a nice hall with a huge kitchen and a large fireplace, and there are showers and camping space. My mom's cousins (the ones who organized the event) stayed in RVs, while we brought our tents. We camped once before on Thanksgiving weekend several years ago, and it was just our luck that there was an arctic freeze that weekend. I hate trying to sleep while it feels like my face is going to freeze and crack apart. It feels awful and I usually get sick. Camping in the summer, when it's nice and warm, is much better. Anyway, we figured it wouldn't be so bad this time and Dad said he would buy some heaters so it should have been okay. Well, the heaters turned out to be kinda useless. My family took pity on my whiny grumpy self the second night and said I could put the heater near my bed, and I basically put it up next to my face and I was mostly warm enough. Until the heater went off. And of course then I had to pee, so I got up and chilled myself thoroughly walking to the bathroom. I was wearing a ton of layers too! I had on longjohns, my heavy knit skirt, socks, a camisole top, warm flannel nightgown, a velvet long-sleeved shirt and my sweatshirt with the hood up. I was inside a sleeping bag and underneath a thermal blanket which I pulled up over my face until I felt like I couldn't breathe (normally I sleep with my head and arms outside the covers; I hate feeling restricted or smothered when I sleep). And I was still cold!!! Eventually I gave up and went and slept in my truck, running the heater every once in a while. I got a few hours of sleep that way.
The reunion itself was pretty nice. I made my tasty barbecued turkey with the spicy orange glaze and of course it was done an hour late because we weren't adding coals often enough. But it still tasted good, and being late meant there was more of it to eat, hehe. The food was the usual fare of stuffing, turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green beans and assorted casseroles, followed by a variety of cakes, pies and cookies for dessert. And Uncle Doug's ice cream! Uncle Doug makes two kinds of homemade ice cream every year. The last few years, the flavors have been maple nut and eggnog, though he used to make different ones from time to time. I love the maple nut, though the walnuts leave little skins that are hard to get out of my teeth. I had to brush after I ate it.
The other highlight of the weekend was that my cousin came for the first time. He's the cousin closest in age to me - he's one month younger. He recently moved to Las Vegas from Baton Rouge, Louisiana (he moved shortly before the hurricane, actually). He's gay and he and his boyfriend have been living together for several years now. My immediate family knows as does his mother, but we're the only ones. My grandmother asked my mom when he was getting married and my mom pointed out that I wasn't married either. Yay. At least she dodged the question. I could tell he was kinda nervous about it - I made some surreptitious comment about the pride parade and his eyes got as big as saucers. Brian and I went out for coffee with him later, which was nice, because we got to chat a bit more openly, but I felt really lame and dumb because I was tired and sort of out of it. Later on, I thought of a bunch of things I could have said or asked him to be more social, but at the time I didn't say much. So frustrating. Hopefully I can persuade him to come visit sometime and then we can get a bit more caught up.
A bit out of it and socially lame is actually how I felt most of the weekend. I didn't really visit much with anyone. I guess I'm feeling bad about being unemployed and only having sort of an idea about what I want to do with myself. I should have been proudly bragging about having graduated, but that feels like a distant thing. It is my major accomplishment this last year, though. There are lots of other things going on in my life and in my head that I just don't feel like talking to relatives about yet, too, so that compounded it a bit yet. Some of my dreams are too fragile to share just yet.
My mom introduced Brian and Zack to people as if they were part of our family, which pleased me. Zack had a really great time, I think. He played with the other kids pretty much the whole time. He did wake up in the middle of the night and freak out about the cold, which was horrible, but he gave the weekend a good review. My best conversation was about him, too; one of my mom's cousins asked about how it felt to be pseudo-stepmom ('mom-by-default' I think she said) and I talked about how it was both terrifying and exciting. Zack is really growing up by leaps and bounds, and it's amazing to me how we can have these really interesting almost adult conversations about things like friendship and God and politics and various other topics. He's very sweet and he adores me - the feeling is mutual. I'm very blessed that these two guys came into my life when they did. I never imagined myself raising someone else's child as my own, and I feel totally inadequate to the job most of the time, but I still feel it's an amazing gift. His mom is really missing out, but her loss is my gain.
Hope you guys all had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend. Here's to family, love, friendship and loyalty, and a great holiday season.
*hugs*