Family Feasting

Tonight we had Pop and Diane, Jor, and Carla and Carla's daughter Veronica over for dinner. Pop brought chicken curry and Waldorf salad. I made dal and rice and tomato salad. Jor and Carla brought apple/berry pie. Dominic and Veronica raged around for most of the three hours. I think they had a lot of fun.

I stayed in the kitchen most of the time and people sifted in and out so I was never alone for more than a minute or two.

Veronica is at that age where torturing children smaller than her is a fun pass-time. Well, let's face it, isn't that true of all ages, in some way or another? If we were to be completely honest, anyway. At one point she had him trapped in his play tent and she was shaking it and roaring in a scary monster voice and he was crying forlornly. She was having a blast. Another interesting game was where she would press a stuffed animal against his face, forcing his head down against the floor until he managed to squirm his way free. He didn't seem as bothered by that game as the "trapped in the tent by a demonic child monster" game. He's an insane little monster himself, and often begs to have someone do something to him over and over that seems to me wholly unpleasant. I suppose there's no accounting for taste.

For example: The child LOVES to be "torture tickled". You know that horrible tickling your uncle or some other adult used to derive so much pleasure from? The game where he would pin you down and tickle you until you couldn't breathe and nearly peed your pants? You know what I mean. The tickling that doesn't tickle at all, but doesn't exactly hurt. Well, sometimes it hurt. It just felt anything but fun. I remember it all too well. And the adult (in my case, it was Josh) would be howling with laughter while I was quite hysterical and pleading with him to stop. I hated it with all my being. Dominic loves this. He begs for it. I get tired and have to stop and rest. He demands, "Again?! Again?! Tickle me!!"

He also loves prat falls. Anytime he falls down and only hurts himself a little, it's as if he's just discovered the coolest new game and he repeats it over and over, with much glee and insistence on full audience attention while he throws himself over a foot stool, into a laundry basket or onto a pile of toys.

But enough about the "teacup humans".

Topics of conversation among the adults were: California's ailing budget and its effect on public schools; raw foods diet,; the health-care system,; mutual respect and lack thereof between instructors and students in college; composting; potty training; Vita-Mix blenders versus human mastication; and the use of coconut oil as an alternative to butter in pie crust.

Some of the conversations would make excellent blog fodder, but I don't know that I'm ready to write about the adults in my family quite yet. I'm still weighing the merits of sharing good stories over the potential alienation of family members that seems almost inevitable when telling the truth, particularly telling all those idiosyncratic little truths out loud and in public. But God, I want to! Soon I will harden my heart and sharpen my quill, and let the chips land where they may. Who knows, perhaps the outstanding sense of humor that seems prevalent in my family will be strong enough to overcome the little embarrassments or even hurt feelings/egos here and there.

Or perhaps I'll just be seen as an asshole.