Wednesday, August 01, 2007

    Family (dys)function

    The family and I (Lovely Wife and Pookie) spent the better part of last week broiling in the North Texas sun. It seems that I had a family (dys)function to attend.

    One thing about being from Texas (West Texas in particular) is the overbearing, heavy-handed sense of being the center of the world. I don't know a lot of other states that take such pride in their own sense of brand location.

    Anyhoo (the Texasisms have come creeping back into my language of late), my kid sister married (a pilot from Mississippi) a guy the family met at the rehearsal lunch. That was nice and awkward. He seemed relatively harmless and smitten, so I am in wait and see mode.

    I endured a lot of "How's the weather treatin' ya" jibes (I moved up North--Yankee land-- in 1993 and haven't gone back) and the occasional, "How can you bear that much cold..."? The questions are honest and sincere, which makes their provinciality, somehow, all the more painful.

    On the last day, Pookie realized that she had promised Special Boy a gift from Texas. He is five to her six. This happened to be in a CVS, so we went to the toy section. She picked up a Buzz Lightyear doll, and she wondered if he would like it. I said that I am sure that he would, but that we should maybe pick out something a little more Texas-sy... She looked and thought and then observed, "we could get him a gun. That is Texas-sy."

    I could not argue.

    We got a stuffed horse instead, though.

    Would you like me to read this to you? Listen