Family weekend
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Topic: Personal
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18:49 Tuesday, 22 February, 2005
Endwell, NY


I had a date with Precocious and Gumby yesterday. We went to see Pooh's Heffalump Movie, then went to Friendly's for dinner. Friendly's is one of my favorite restaurants, but they're only in the northeast, so I always have to go to one just before leaving town every time. Precocious and Gumby had had a bit of pop-corn at the movie, so they didn't eat their dinners too well, but it was fun, and we got left-overs out of the deal, so that's all right.

And the movie was excellent. Roo goes exploring and meets a baby Heffalump, who is very cute. His name is Lumpy and he speaks with a British accent! I'd somehow never noticed that the Pooh animals don't have an accent, even though Christopher Robin does, and we know they all come from England. I guess I always just thought his accent was thicker or something. At any rate, the Heffalump was British, and he was adorable. So I loved it.

And then, to top it off, the moral of the story was about cultural diversity. What a perfect message for today's age! Pooh and his friends were afraid of the Heffalumps and therefore decided they had to capture them. However, Roo was too little to go along on such a dangerous expedition, and sent him home. He didn't like this idea, so went on an expedition of his own. He was scared of the Heffalumps because of the uninformed stories his friends had told, but when he met the friendly, baby Heffalump, he realized he didn't have to be afraid. And once Lumpy ? now Roo's friend ? learned that Roo had come from the 100-acre wood, he told all the stories *he* had heard and said he was afraid to go there. But Roo promised his friends were nice, and wanted Lumpy to meet them. So they ventured over, only to have Roo's friends capture Lumpy! Lumpy felt betrayed and Roo felt said, but in the end they learned they didn't have to be afraid of each other. It was just a great message: both sides of the fence had been taught to be afraid of each other, but there really was nothing to fear. The two groups were just different, and different is O.K.


The other family fun I had this weekend was my surprise un-birthday party Sunday night. I was sent one of those e-mail surveys ? the ones with, like, a hundred questions about yourself so your friends can get to know you better ? about a month ago, and one of the questions was about one's most memorable birthday. I'd answered that I didn't really have many birthday memories, because mine was never really celebrated much. As a kid, my birthday was always combined with my mother's, which is two days later. This is fine, but it meant my personal birthday never felt all that memorable, I guess. I'd never really thought about it much. Anyway, since my birthday is in August, I never got a party at school. I also had a small friend-base by the end of the summer, since our neighborhood was pretty isolated, having only a few other kids to play with. Then came college, again not having close friends at the end of the summer, and since college I've worked seasonally over the summers, so haven't had a family birthday in several years. Anyway, the basic answer was that I hadn't really had any memorable birthdays. The most memorable was this past summer ? partly because it was the most recent (and therefore the easiest to remember), but also because my friends got together to make dinner with me, and two different people made cakes for me.
Anyway, my family is planning on going to the beach for a week this summer, something they haven't done in twenty years. So I really want to be around for it. It will also happen to be the week of my birthday, as it was the last time we did it. At a big dinner one night (every few weeks we get all eight of us local family together for a nicer dinner) we were talking about the beach and birthdays and everything, and I mentioned what I'd recently realized about memorable birthdays. I didn't say it for the purpose of telling them to do anything about it, I was just making conversation or whatever. But I guess my Mom took it to heart, because she sneakily got everyone together Sunday evening and made cake and ice cream and grilled steaks and wrapped up a few presents and all that. It was great. The gifts were really just candy bars put in big boxes, because they knew I didn't have space to take anything extra with me. They also wrapped the packaging for the camera we'd bought last week. So it was cool. I'd been expecting a 'last dinner' kind of thing a night or two before I left, but nothing this elaborate. It was quite flattering.

So all this family stuff made me kinda sad to be leaving. I mean, I'm very excited about it and all, but I always hate missing out on the fun family stuff. And I especially miss the kids, and don't like missing their whole growing-up process. Granted, they're pretty grown-up already, being 7 and 5, but they change so much in such a short period of time, I just wish I could be around. But I know I get all stir-crazy when I stay around, especially in the summer, so I'm happy to be going. I tried staying close-by one year, when I was in Ithaca, but when the summer was over I felt like I'd missed the entire thing, so I can't do that again. It's going to be a fantastic trip, and I can't wait. But I'll miss everyone.


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