Boston
This weekend was probably one of my favorite family events in recent history. Saturday's birthday party for Caroline (my 40 year old cousin) wasn't too exciting - just tons of people all happy to see each other but seemingly disinterested in each other at the same time... it's hard to explain what I mean. Way too many people grilled me about what I want to do with my life... not immediate family members, but people who don't really even know me so they just go through the basic questions...
Person: So you're Tamar, Eleanor's daughter - I've heard so much about you!
Me: Yeah... I'm Tamar... you're *insert person's name*, right?
Person: Yes... so what are you doing with your life?
Me: Well I'm still in college - I'm a psychology major at Oberlin (information-packed sentance to avoid the further questions of "where do you go?" and "what's your major?")
Person: Oh! You must be getting ready to graduate, right?
Me: Well not quite... I'm still a Junior....
Person: (still keeping with the 'you're about to graduate' frame of mind) What do you plan to do after you graduate?
Me: I'm not really sure... I feel like I could do a number of different things - I guess I'll just see what I'm thinking in another year and a half (subtle reminder that I'm not about to graduate)
Person: Well what about psychology interests you?
Me: Hmm... well right now I'm really interested in autism... but I don't know for sure that I want to devote my life to it...
Person: These days you need to go to graduate school to be involved in psychology. What are your plans for graduate school? How have you been spending your summers? Summer jobs are a good way to find out what you want to do... (person may go on for awhile while I smile and nod, pretending that this "advice," however unsolicited, is somehow helpful)
But once I found my way into the area where my 5 year old cousin Ezra was playing with a Gameboy things got a little more fun. I went to the car to grab my GBA and let Ezra play Yoshi's Island while I got to check out a Kirby game (I'm not sure which one it was). Then my 3 year old cousin Rebecca asked to play, so I surrendered my precious gameboy to her. She was too young to understand the game, of course, but she was deffinitely really into the button that turns the screen light on and off :-)
All the out of town family members went to dinner at a random chinese restaurant that turned out to be really good. The younger generation sat together and drank Scorpion Bowls (these totally awesome rum and burbon w/ fruit juice drinks that I'd never heard of before) while talking about far more interesting things than plans for after college. The Scorpion Bowls were 2 person drinks - literally bowl sized... and in the center there's some really strong alcohol that the weighter's lit on fire for us. It was kinda like drinking from a mini volcano or something. A couple of the cousins are Red Sox fans, so we decided to hang out in the hotel lobby and watch the game... but not before hitting the 7/11 to buy some beverages for the game. I kinda wish I could write some amusing drinking story here, but alas I was far from anywhere close to being drunk so the most interesting thing to say is that Mike's Light (a low carb verion of Mike's Hard Lemonade) leaves my teeth tasting yummy just like Minute Made Light Lemonade. Yummies.
The wedding reception today was really beautiful. I usually end up rolling my eyes at the 'touching' speeches people give about how great the celebrated person is... but this time they were really beautiful. I think it's in part because I've known both Bob and Joe for my entire life - the few other weddings I've been to I've only really known one of the people getting married. But in part it's deffinitely because it feels so incredibly right for Bob and Joe to finally be married - they've been together longer than I've been alive - they met on valentines day 21 years ago. In some sense it's sad that for the past 21 years their relationship has only been recognized unofficially by the people who know them. At the same time, not being able to get married for so many years makes it feel a lot more special now that it's finally happened. Some of the outfits at the party were pretty amazing - there was this gay couple dressed in these really shiny suits and a straight couple in which the husband wore a genuine Irish Kilt. The downstairs tenant in Bob and Joe's building played them a song on his Recorder.
I was assigned a seat at a table next to a man who made his living choosing photographs for college text books. His job consisted of looking at lots and lots of pictures, finding good ones, and obtaining their copyrights. Needless to say, I was not able to sustain a lengthy conversation about his line of work... so I taught Rebecca how to take pictures with one of the disposable cameras that were sitting on all the tables instead.
I'd say the weekend was well worth not getting back to Oberlin until tomorrow evening :-)
Person: So you're Tamar, Eleanor's daughter - I've heard so much about you!
Me: Yeah... I'm Tamar... you're *insert person's name*, right?
Person: Yes... so what are you doing with your life?
Me: Well I'm still in college - I'm a psychology major at Oberlin (information-packed sentance to avoid the further questions of "where do you go?" and "what's your major?")
Person: Oh! You must be getting ready to graduate, right?
Me: Well not quite... I'm still a Junior....
Person: (still keeping with the 'you're about to graduate' frame of mind) What do you plan to do after you graduate?
Me: I'm not really sure... I feel like I could do a number of different things - I guess I'll just see what I'm thinking in another year and a half (subtle reminder that I'm not about to graduate)
Person: Well what about psychology interests you?
Me: Hmm... well right now I'm really interested in autism... but I don't know for sure that I want to devote my life to it...
Person: These days you need to go to graduate school to be involved in psychology. What are your plans for graduate school? How have you been spending your summers? Summer jobs are a good way to find out what you want to do... (person may go on for awhile while I smile and nod, pretending that this "advice," however unsolicited, is somehow helpful)
But once I found my way into the area where my 5 year old cousin Ezra was playing with a Gameboy things got a little more fun. I went to the car to grab my GBA and let Ezra play Yoshi's Island while I got to check out a Kirby game (I'm not sure which one it was). Then my 3 year old cousin Rebecca asked to play, so I surrendered my precious gameboy to her. She was too young to understand the game, of course, but she was deffinitely really into the button that turns the screen light on and off :-)
All the out of town family members went to dinner at a random chinese restaurant that turned out to be really good. The younger generation sat together and drank Scorpion Bowls (these totally awesome rum and burbon w/ fruit juice drinks that I'd never heard of before) while talking about far more interesting things than plans for after college. The Scorpion Bowls were 2 person drinks - literally bowl sized... and in the center there's some really strong alcohol that the weighter's lit on fire for us. It was kinda like drinking from a mini volcano or something. A couple of the cousins are Red Sox fans, so we decided to hang out in the hotel lobby and watch the game... but not before hitting the 7/11 to buy some beverages for the game. I kinda wish I could write some amusing drinking story here, but alas I was far from anywhere close to being drunk so the most interesting thing to say is that Mike's Light (a low carb verion of Mike's Hard Lemonade) leaves my teeth tasting yummy just like Minute Made Light Lemonade. Yummies.
The wedding reception today was really beautiful. I usually end up rolling my eyes at the 'touching' speeches people give about how great the celebrated person is... but this time they were really beautiful. I think it's in part because I've known both Bob and Joe for my entire life - the few other weddings I've been to I've only really known one of the people getting married. But in part it's deffinitely because it feels so incredibly right for Bob and Joe to finally be married - they've been together longer than I've been alive - they met on valentines day 21 years ago. In some sense it's sad that for the past 21 years their relationship has only been recognized unofficially by the people who know them. At the same time, not being able to get married for so many years makes it feel a lot more special now that it's finally happened. Some of the outfits at the party were pretty amazing - there was this gay couple dressed in these really shiny suits and a straight couple in which the husband wore a genuine Irish Kilt. The downstairs tenant in Bob and Joe's building played them a song on his Recorder.
I was assigned a seat at a table next to a man who made his living choosing photographs for college text books. His job consisted of looking at lots and lots of pictures, finding good ones, and obtaining their copyrights. Needless to say, I was not able to sustain a lengthy conversation about his line of work... so I taught Rebecca how to take pictures with one of the disposable cameras that were sitting on all the tables instead.
I'd say the weekend was well worth not getting back to Oberlin until tomorrow evening :-)