Lost In Haste

Some of my best childhood memories are of Perryville with my family. Back when all of us went down to the grandparents for Christmas and Easter and of course, Thanksgiving. All of the aunts, uncles, and cousins would come down and have a great time. There was food and laughter and love.

Of course, its impossible to stay young and innocent forever. One grows up and starts seeing the reality behind the illusion. Bitterness, unhappiness, hatred, anger: all of the ugly emotions become immediately obvious when walking into the room.

Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with any of that this weekend (see it yes, deal with it no). I ended up driving down to Perryville on Saturday morning (I was supposed to go down to Cape to see some friends Friday night but luckily that fell through because I had a much better time at a party at my boss’s loft…even with the karaoke…) bright and early at the crack of dawn. Naturally the kids (as in cousins) weren’t up yet so I ended up catching up with my aunts and uncles.

Eventually the tantalizing smells waifing from the kitchen lured the sleep deprived children from their slumber. While they were eating, I started to set up (again, but a long story) my laptop to act as a web server for the purpose of developing websites (as if I actually have the time to do that anymore). Once the food was inhaled, we (as in cousins and two uncles) made our way over to my Grandfather’s place.

He’d been in the hospital a for the better part of a few weeks and for a while it looked like he was going to be leaving this world. In fact, that was most of the reason my Michigan cousins came down to visit. However, by the time all of us saw him, he was doing remarkably better. If anything, he looked better yesterday than he did the last time I saw him!

After that, my family and end ended up at the Seminary picnic and ate, in the true way of my family, far too much food. I can’t remember the last time I’d eaten fried chicken but it was amazing! …of course I payed for it later but I still think it was worth it… Of course, we couldn’t say outside for long (I believe the temperature hit ninety-eight during the course of the day) and eventually plodded on back to my uncle’s house where video games, pizza, and alcohol awaited. Sadly, my uncle had no vodka but I made due with some whiskey and coke.

After staying up till 3am and getting up every hour from 6am till 10am, I ended up calling it quits at 2pm. It was sad to say goodbye to everyone (my cousin Grant is going to Japan to teach English for a year while his brother is going to China for a semester to become fluent in Chinese) but all good things must come to an end. I doubt all of the cousins (at this point I’ll interject two of my cousins weren’t there but that was no big lose seeing as I’ve had the feeling they haven’t liked me for years) will ever get together like this for a good long time. At least not until a weeding…or a funeral…