Musings of a Wench

One simple step for surviving my family: get really drunk

A weekend with the K. family (my dad's family) is always a stressful time. We don't see each other much. In fact, one of my cousins works in a building I can see from my office and I haven't talked to him since his wedding 5 years ago. And I even like him. My cousin Critterfur I saw at that wedding but don't think I've talked to him since before I hit puberty. My dad's family all live within a 3 hour drive our their house and we so very rarely see each other. Mainly because there were years of bitterness, anger, bile and rudeness. Like, 40 years. It was hard being Germans in a small town in Alberta after the war, and it was a hard living. And they are strange. At one point, my mother was told to quit her job as a well paid geologist because she made more money than my dad, and that that just mustn’t happen. Did I mention my father used to call his sister the Anti Christ? Yeah. Feel the love. It's been better over the last while, as people being to relax and stop being so horrible. It's hardly perfect, but at least we had a whole day of family time, and everyone was civil.

Everyone was also drunk.

Really, really, really drunk.

Most people started drinking by 3 pm, and the most stopped around midnight. Not me and John and my father and a few others though - never say no while the 1.5L wine jugs are still being passed around (we lasted another hour). Or more accurately, wine being forced in to your glass. My little cousin got drunk (hey, she's 18, she's legal here in happy Canada) and talkative - I think it was the first time anyone heard her say more than a few sentences at the same time in her entire life. John, who never met my family before, was amazed by how nice everyone was. Then again, John's favourite person was the old guy (my aunt's husband's sister's husband) with dementia that everyone else is totally weirded out by, so obviously the boyfriend isn't the best judge of character. I left the two of them alone when he started showing John his hand, which he destroyed with a table saw a while ago, and started explaining how they'd grafted a chunk of his hip to hand. My father left an earlier conversation with him when he proudly explained how he'd crashed his truck by totally not noticing a semi and crashing right in to the side of it, and how he didn't even get a ticket for it! All true, including the dementia diagnosis. Quite the scary guy.

I talked to my cousin R. for the first time as an 'adult' - or at least as some kind of peer. I last saw him at his wedding 5 years ago. I was finished high school - I was a child still even in my own head, and he was an adult - a great job, a wife, a grown up life. Now, we're both working in the same industry, for major companies. We both own houses. He has a wife, and I have John, so close enough. It was really great talking to him, and I just hope I wasn't too drunk to not make sense. I'm pretty sure I held my own, for all I don't know too much about the strategic direction of our respective Oil companies. At one in the morning. After we'd both being drinking for hours. It was a good chat though, and maybe the 4 of us will head our skiing/boarding this winter. It would be nice to know and get along with my family, especially one so close. Also, his wife, an adorable little Hindu woman, is shorter than I am, and in my family that is rare. My grown cousins range from 5'11" to 6'5", with only one exception. So I'm glad we can marry some short blood into the family. Maybe my nieces and nephews won't dwarf me by the age of 9. I can hope, considering I'm only 5'4" if I stretch my spine to the follow reach yoga has given me.

It was a surprisingly good time, and let me just thank the party organizers fro recognizing that the best way to survive a K. family gathering is to never be in full possession of your senses.

posted by Morgan @ 4:05 p.m.