My husband's family has developed a really cute tradition in the digital age. Before big gatherings, like the one today that included two dozen family members (if my memory serves), as soon as the basic potluck plans are made, the smack-talking begins. There are threats of unusual foods, insults regarding culinary skills, bad puns, and general buffoonery. This year Mr S-P and one of our nephews were about to throw down a cooking competition, for the weirdest camping stove creation that family judges would be willing to sample, until calmer heads prevailed and they called it off at last night's basketball game. The email chains with all of this banter and nonsense end up hundreds of posts long. Even during the years when we were on the other side of the country, with no chance of us flying back, we still participated in the smack talking, still enjoyed the heck out of watching everyone try to one up each other. The family is exceedingly clever, and all afternoon today we were continuously reminded of that. I kept thinking of Garrison Keillor's line from all the stories of Lake Wobegon: "All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average." When the cousins were little, one of my daughters said having them all in one room felt like the overachievers Olympics. Someone was always about to compete in some academic or extracurricular competition of some sort, usually at a state or national level, and here were my kids, moving school to school every few years, often living in places that had little to offer transient student populations. Now all the kids are grown, and they've gone from ambitious students to interesting and entertaining adults. We have all settled into ourselves, and family Thanksgivings are a bit looser than they used to be. I wonder whether that's the influence of the kids. It feels like it is. All those cute, smart kids have been good for us. Who knew? (TBH, we all did.)
I don't know how I managed it, but I went all day without my phone. I ran out of the house without grabbing it off the charger, and since we were late to dinner, I couldn't turn around and retrieve it. I needed other people to take my photographs for me. I gave no instructions, other than asking both the man and our daughter to send me some, and I find it interesting how the same photos out the same window on the same day were dramatically different between my two surrogates. Plus, I got a few interior shots from the Mr. So here they are, unedited and in their entirety.
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