November 17, 2004

And now, the news.

The Kids

Lilly and Michael and Anthony and Devlin are coming into town this Thursday, and staying until the 27th or 28th. Then they're coming back into town on December 17th and staying until December 27th or 28th. There will be many, many photo and video opportunities. You will be inundated. First Thanksgiving home for the both of them since they joined the Marines, first Christmas home for the both of them since joining the Marines, first "conscious" Turkey Day and Christmas for Anthony, and a brand new baby to ogle. The sheer amount of required photography is almost overwhelming. But I'll be cooking 20 of the 24 hours in a day the whole time, so Calvin will have to be the documentarian.

Marie got her license today. She was so excited she nearly exploded, right there in the MVD. She doo-doo-doo'ed all the way home, occasionally letting out a little shriek of glee. I thought it was WAY cool that I got to be there for this milestone in her life. Calvin was there when Michael got his license, and I got to be with Marie. She and Calvin finally found rims that they liked, for Marie's truck. Marie managed to save half of the funds for the rims, and will be paying the rest off on credit to get her credit foundation started. And so it begins, Marie. And so it begins.

The Uncle

The visit with my uncle went shockingly well. He and his girlfriend arrived in the early afternoon on Saturday, and we all sat out on the patio with our beer and our coffee and talked for, oh, at least a couple of hours. My uncle was perfectly pleasant, and even brought up his son a couple of times - a topic that has been taboo up until now. We talked about family, and he and Calvin saw eye to eye on politics and the military and the war in Iraq. Actually, they saw eye to eye on a lot of things, which might disturb me if I thought about it too hard. At any rate, we visited for a couple of hours, then my uncle treated us to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. We sat and visited there for a couple of more hours, then dropped them back off at the home they're staying at.

There was no controversy. There was no drama. There was no big, terrible thing that needed to be "discussed". It was just an obligatory family visit. And it threw me for a loop. And then I had the thought, as we were talking about the little things that Grandma used to do to care for us when we were little, "He and I were brought up by the same person." And that threw me for a bigger loop. I mean, intellectually I've always known that, of course he and I were both brought up by Grandma, but I never actually digested the thought before.

So, I'm verklempt, and not really sure how I feel about things right now. Tentatively positive, I guess, but the actuality of having a real live family member that recalls my childhood and my parents and knows all about my history, including a lot that I didn't know about... well, it's too new of a concept for me to have digested it yet. It's like, I got used to not having roots for a very, very long time - and now, all of a sudden, I have evidence of some roots that existed all along. I don't know, it's weird. And probably hard to understand. So I'll stop trying to explain.

The Contest

And now, the (slightly late) moment you've all been waiting for! The announcement of the Random Yet Amusing Bottlecap Contest!

And the winner is, with a guess of 674 bottle caps, Lana! She wasn't off by much, which means that she pays WAY too close attention to how often I write about drinking on my website.

And the person who guessed the correct most-often-drunk beer is Amanda, who was the first person to correctly guess "Bud Light". Actually, EVERYBODY guessed Bud Light, but she was the first one to submit her answer.

So, Lana and Amanda, expect your Arizona-Themed surprises in the mail shortly! Or as soon as you e-mail me back with your snail-mail addresses.

Oh, and in case you wanted to know, the *actual* amount of bottle caps was 547, with 282 of them being Bud Light. Plus 4 pop tabs, 15 pennies, and 1 old piece of gum. Count accuracy (and gum) courtesy of Marie.

Mmm... beer...

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