Archive: Friends and Family

On Saturday, JG and I spent the day with my freshman-year roommate and neighbors tailgating and watching our alma mater play Valerie’s. Much to my dismay, after five overtimes, we lost the game 62-56. Argh. I can’t even think about it without feeling the agony of defeat. I poured so much energy into those overtimes — hey, jumping and screeching takes a lot out of a girl — that I was exhausted after the fact. If we had won, it would have been worth it, but since we didn’t, I felt absolutely drained. Thus, it is time to resurrect the blurbage.

To(w)tally confusing and amusing
When we tailgate, JG and I usually park in a side lot where, if we’re lucky, we can shimmy up to a brick island and use it as a sort of patio. Then, we can spread out all of our gear without taking up another parking space. When we all arrived, the lot was basically empty, but two tow trucks came to remedy the situation. As far as we could tell, they were simply relocating cars from one lot to ours. Each truck had one car on the bed and another pulling behind, and the drivers re-parked the cars in other spots. Our whole crew watched silently, transfixed. What was going on? If the cars were parked illegally, why weren’t they being towed outright? One of our number walked over to a driver and, after a brief conversation with gesturing and nodding, he reported, “The story is … he has no idea. Someone told him to move the cars and he didn’t ask why.” Very helpful. While we found the rather violent process of shaking down the cars from the truck beds quite entertaining, the best part of the enigmatic prelude to the game was the message on the back of the truck cabs: “We meet by accident.” Love it.

Head of the slow lane
I learned how to watch football from watching the score board and asking JG tons of questions while we sat in the UD student stands on the south end zone, which allowed for zero depth perception. As a result, I am fairly well-versed in the overall mechanics of the game, even if I couldn’t tell you what a specific position does. My normal sports-watching circle is entirely fluent in football-ese, while I muddle along and translate in my head, so I am used to being one step behind everyone else. I don’t see the penalties right away and I can’t identify the players very quickly, but I can keep up well enough. Well, for the first time, as I sat with my friends, I was one of the most knowledgeable people in the row. What in the world! I pointed out which numbers on our team would most likely be big players and eventually explained how the overtime periods worked. I surprised myself when, even before the ref signaled the call, I leapt to my feet and started hollering that the Richmond receiver did not have control when he went down and to give them a first down would be a horrible call! Meanwhile, my friends just stared at me and I felt a little silly about getting so worked up. But the refs ruled it incomplete, after all!

Awesomeness never fades
During my sophomore year, I chose to stay in freshman housing as a mentor, so I didn’t really see my freshman-year friends very often. JG and I were dating and the two circles seemed to separate. We saw each other haphazardly and always on good terms, but I always kind of regretted that I wasn’t a part of their close-knit gang for the rest of college. But my friends are such cool people that they can just pick up where we left off, even if we haven’t seen each other for months and months. They’ll rub it in my face that JG and I “weren’t dating” freshman year, quote lines of HIMYM when we find out we all watch it religiously, and start off stories with, “First of all, let’s get it straight that I am awesome.” They’ll bring huge coolers of drinks, lemon-pepper shrimp to grill, and a giant cookie cake for dessert. They’ll recall how JG and I had an awesome wedding because “it wasn’t all scary and huge like, ‘I’m a wedding and I’m gonna take up your entire weekend!’” Best of all, they’ll call me RaRa, just like old times, fill me in on their amazing trip to Europe, and make the day go by in a snap. Man, I wish they lived nearer to us.

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What do you know – I get a dog and, despite my raging incompetence, I become a beaming, braggy owner in less than 48 hours. I’m like one of those parents who will whip out a clear plastic, wallet-sized photo holder to unfortunate passersby:

“Did you hear that we got a dog? You didn’t? Let me show you! This is Ted on the grass…and this is Ted on the deck…”

But seriously, he is too cute! How could I resist that face?

Lucky for me, I am not the only one of this persuasion. In addition to comments with a serious case of capital-letters-itis, a spate of picture e-mailing and internet musings has produced a bevy of ringing endorsements for our little adoptee:

“Aww he’s GREAT!!! I find it HILARIOUS that he’s smaller than JG’s head! Umm, saying nothing about the size of JG’s head of course…only the size of the dog…err, yes… And I agree that he is VERY endearing. He’ll probably try to use that to his advantage, so be vigilant. :o) ”
— Best friend, recipient of the panicked, pre-puppy voicemail

“Oh my goodness gracious!!! He is so ADORABLE!!!! If you ever need someone to watch him, I’d be more than happy to drive the 2 hours! I love him already!!!”
— One of my bridesmaids

“OMG he is sooooo adorable!!! So you got a puppy?!?!?! How is he?!?! Ahhh I wish I was there to see him, but I will just have to make a trip over Christmas!”
— JG’s sister, who just arrived in Australia to study abroad for the semester

“I LOVE YOUR DOG! I think he and Sam could be great friends! You must bring him along when you come to visit! Can’t wait to see that dog in person!”
— Mimi, who has a Lhasa Apso named Samantha

“He is, obviously, legen…wait for it…dary!”
— JG’s mom, in an impressive show of HIMYM inside jokery

“People, I warn you, unless you are stronger-willed and less susceptible to whimpering out loud whilst at work at the cuteness of a puppy, be careful before clicking over to RA’s Flickr stream. Because, ack, that baby Westie makes Alex and my leash hand’s ache with emptiness and now we HAVE to go to the puppy store on the way home OR ELSE.”
— Deb, in response to my lure of vicarious puppy photos

The masses have spoken and apparently, Ted is The Cutest Dog Ever. Sorry, other dogs. I shrug and look sheepish because, alas, there is nothing I can do about it.

I was invited to a bridal shower that’s taking place this weekend, but we have other plans, so I sent my apologies along with a recipe card (chicken with garlic and shallots) to be included in the recipe collection. The bride is a childhood friend of JG’s, and while I wouldn’t have been wholly at ease, I still would have gone to the shower to boost the young person ratio. It’s tough to be a bridesmaid where the majority of party attendees consists of mothers, grandmothers, great aunts, and the like, so I try to attend when I’m invited, even though showers are pretty low on my list of Things I Actively Enjoy.

Conveniently, the bride and her fiancé were staying at our house on their way up to Cape Cod, so I had the chance to actually give her a gift. I thought it might be rather awkward, however, because, um, my default bridal shower gift is lingerie. If there’s something on the registry that I feel strongly compelled to buy, like a digital meat thermometer, I’ll usually throw in a cute camisole set to go with it. Then, the bride gets function and fun, right? In this case, though, the bride wasn’t really my friend; I was invited more because JG wasn’t allowed. Do friends-in-law buy each other lingerie?

On the one hand, it is what I would have brought to the shower anyway. It’s fun to get lingerie as a gift, right? And isn’t it kind of weird to shop for it for oneself? Or is that just me?

On the other, paranoid hand – what the heck was I thinking? I didn’t know what size the bride was or what colors she liked or at what point she drew the line between sexy and trashy. How could I make a vicarious lingerie decisions for someone I have only known through catch-up conversations three times a year? How?!

So, I did what any flummoxed gift-giver would do. I called my mother-in-law for a sanity check. She had known the bride for at least fifteen years, which was roughly 14.75 years longer than I had, and I posed my uncertainty to her. “I think lingerie is a great gift!” she said, brightly. “Yes, that’s the size I would go with, too. Just include a gift receipt and it’ll be fine.”

Okay, then.

I made many, many laps around Victoria’s Secret. The salesgirls kept offering to help, but they declared me a hopeless case when I made my eighteenth turn around the underwear display. After much internal deliberation, I left with a sheer yellow babydoll with white satin trim and, for a more casual occasion, a pink camisole with three complementary bottoms. Oh, and a gift receipt.

When the time came to present that shiny pink gift bag, I was trembling. Was the babydoll too transparent? What if she didn’t like yellow? Or pink? Then we would have an awkward scene of her trying to pretend she liked everything while I did my best to burrow into the floor. I swallowed hard. At the pivotal moment, the bride lifted out the babydoll and exclaimed, “Ooh! I love lingerie! This is so pretty!” Well, how about that.

Perhaps this occasion was one of those times where JG was correct in his assessment and I did, indeed, think too much. The rest of the time, though, I’m pretty sure that I think about things with the exact amount of consideration that they deserve.

When the cousins, aunts, and uncles of JG’s family assemble, competition reigns and bragging rights are the only trophy.

“Bet you can’t fit ten grapes in your mouth.”

“Who can toss the most bottle caps in the bowl?”

“Ha, I finished the crossword that you couldn’t!”

“But can anyone make it from here?”

And so on.

On the beach, the whole family partakes in a variety of sport events to see who’s got game: quoits, four-square, paddle ball, bocce, Frisbee, and some melee called “rundown.” After working up a sweat, they all plunge into the ocean to see who can catch the best wave. And then more running around or tossing things. I don’t know the specifics; I abstain from all of that athletic activity in favor of other worthwhile endeavors like napping.

Unfortunately, with all of the unfriendly weather that frequented the Jersey shore last week, the possibilities for beach athletics were few and far between. What is a pack of competition-driven relatives to do?

Set up a tournament of Wii bowling, of course!

JG’s uncle received the game system for Father’s Day and brought it along for everyone to try. It was the perfect venue for exerting indoor restlessness and spectator heckling. I took one for the team (ahem) and bowed out of the tournament so that there would be sixteen participants – “the perfect number!” JG crowed – but I volunteered to draw up tidy brackets and keep score throughout the proceedings. We randomly seeded the bowlers and set up a double-elimination system with brackets for winners and losers. In an effort to keep the smack-talking to a minimum, I dubbed the latter the “elimination bracket.”

Play began on Independence Day with the following highlights:

• Mimi bowled for the first time and was ridiculously good. She said, “This isn’t so hard! Like that beer pong you all talk about.”
• I got to make a personal avatar (a Mii) and I turned out so cute! Even though I didn’t bowl in the tournament, I got to mill around in the background and that was thrill enough for me.
• One of the aunts bowled seven strikes in a row, resulting in the nickname, “Seven-Pack.” She earned the tournament’s highest score of 259.

With the onset of good weather on the last beach day, the tournament was abandoned with two rounds to play. I guess we’ll never know who would have been the 2007 Wii Bowling Champion, which is a shame because no one gets to brag. Ah, well. There’s always speculation, I guess, as with any sports commentary worth its salt.