Tonight, we had Esteban’s paternal family gathering, which meant that I had to smile and talk to his uncle’s mistress Tequila and concentrate very hard to prevent myself from rolling my eyes at her. Because I do. Roll my eyes. A LOT.
Esteban’s cousin is expecting a baby, the first pregnancy on that side of the family since the cousin was born. I like his cousin and his wife, they are sort of crunchy granola hipsters and I imagine that their apartment or house or yurt has a lot of furniture covered in Mexican blankets. They always act uber polite to Esteban and me, like they’re taking care of use colloquialisms to talk to the natives. I understand how this goes, because I definitely put on a persona when dealing with family members too. I pretend to be a lot nicer and a lot more stupid and by doing so, this serves to keep me out of trouble and also serves to keep people from hating me. Because honestly, if they only knew what I was thinking, they’d probably hate me.
I’d hate me.
I always sort of want to pull them aside and be like ‘Hey, it’s ok, you can cut the act. I’m one of you.’ Except really, I’m probably not. They are much cooler than I am. And also, they probably have some elaborate hand sign that you have to flash to have hippie cred. Or maybe it’s ASL for ‘Freebird, Man!’
No one has said anything, but it seems odd that of the two boys that represent the next generation of ‘Bans, his cousin would be the one propagating the family name. ‘Highly motivated’ is never something you’d use to describe this guy. He’s just sort of strolling along, man, enjoying the view. They kind of fell into getting married and I think they maybe kind of fell into having a baby. Or I can only assume, since I don’t know the secret hand signal.
Esteban’s Aunt Letitia called earlier in the day to alert us to the fact that she was coming to our house at 5:30 so that she could ride in our car to the restaurant. I do not really know the logic behind this, but apparently the drive across town is too much. Which meant that I had to clean out my car a day earlier than planned. Between my Starbucks habit and Abby’s weekend occupying the backseat, it was definitely necessary.
But, all in all, it was a fine evening. I didn’t have to sit too close to Tequila (pity Esteban, however, who bore the brunt of it) and spent most of the evening talking to his Aunt Teresita and Uncle Dawid. I like them. They are probably my favorite of all Esteban’s extended family. They’re clever and can even make a listing of their current ailments seem charming and fun. Also, a friend of the family came along, an adorably sweet little lady who regaled us of the time she accidentally brought an expired passport with her to France. The GRB airport screwed up and accepted it but when she got to customs in France, she was detained. And then handcuffed. And then interrogated for hours. In French. Then she got deported. My first reaction from this story was ‘COOL!’ because dude, that totally would have happened to me. Especially when she admitted that the reason she hadn’t thrown her expired passport away was because she had really liked the picture. Specifically, she had really great hair in it.
The story ended on a great note, however, as when she landed on American soil, the airline apologized profusely and sent her back to France first class. However, given that she works in a high end transit field, it didn’t look very good that her picture was on ICE. Not the good picture with the great hair either, unfortunately. And she was a ‘person of interest’ for six months. But seriously, I know that sort of sucks, being screamed at by men wearing berets for hours but man, being an international person of interest? It’s almost worth the handcuffing. I’ll bet she is the only person at her next several parties who can say that they got kicked out of France. I would think that out of any country, they would appreciate the importance of good hair in one’s passport photo, though.
I too am in danger of such an incident, as my current passport photo is awesome. I look like I just might have a secret. Or do I? International spy? Or someone with unusually pale skin. You just don’t know. You just might have to handcuff me to find out.
You should probably know that I am currently addicted to the flash game Zuma and have probably logged 14 hours shooting marbles out of the last 48. I can’t get passed the 3rd level, 4th screen. It’s killing me to know how impossible the 4th level is. Killing me.
Stupid Zuma.
