Xmas Lunch: People Don’t Need a Big Meal in the Middle of the Day, Anyway
Itemized, for your skimming pleasure.
1. Not having been contacted by anyone after my SOS phone calls and e-mails yesterday, I showed up at around 12:15. Grandmother then informed me that the lunch is in fact at 2:00 (though it later emerges that she told aunt #1 it was at 1:00, and neglected to tell aunt #2 a time at all; at least it wasn’t just me).
2. Having hit the road about 11:00, I didn’t have time to prepare any food to bring and so made do with my emergency food bars. This was vaguely distressing to my grandmother — not because I wasn’t eating her food, which she’d been warned about, but that I only had a small lunch. She is of the old school of hospitality, which requires its initiates to urge more food on guests the instant that they clean their plates, or indeed sometimes while they’re still eating their current helpings.
3. Having recently bitched about how awful Hellmart is, it was of course inevitable that I would be presented with a Hellmart gift card. Thus does the universe amuse itself.
4. One must be careful when regifting; ideally, stick a little name-and-year label on the package when stowing it for future use, to be sure that you don’t give your granddaughter the exact same package of teas that she and her parents gave you two years ago.
5. My uncle (Larry #1, to be distinguished from Larry #2, though they are respectively married to aunts #1 and #2, and also from Original Larry, who was born into the family a few generations ago*) is the only grown man I know who admits to reading Harry Potter. Incidentally, he is also pro-Snape.
6. Today was not my day, dog-wise. Nigel had his infamous and baffling Squeaky Stomach ailment this morning, which apparently can only be conquered by pita bread; regular food will be ignored. My grandmother’s new boxer gave me the hairy eyeball and growled at me, despite my best efforts to make friends; aunt #2’s bassett/shepherd mix looked at me like I was the sum of all his nightmares, and hid behind my aunt. He’s dreadfully shy, so I didn’t take that personally, but I’m a little perplexed by the boxer’s behavior. You would’ve thought he’d assume I was okay, given that my grandmother was standing right next to me and chatting happily. Odd.
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*That side of the family is rich in Larrys. No chance of a Larry-related shortage there. It is perhaps inevitable that my grandmother tends to call my father, who is not a Larry, by that name anyway, especially given that she treats names as flexible descriptors that can be attached to anyone even remotely the same sex, shape, age, or species. I am usually addressed by my mother’s name, though occasionally by aunt #2’s name. Whatever. She does it to everyone, and always has. She’s good at keeping dogs’ names straight, though. Must be genetic.
