...June...

Monday

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My dad's always saying you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your family and even though I get his meaning it doesn't exactly make me want to share a bowl of popcorn with him. He's right about family though because the second year born year automatically in a group of people you never asked to be a part of it's a boy. in fact when you're born a bunch of stuff has already been decided for you like where you live and even what language you will speak but since you can't actually talk you you can't tell the people taking care of you the most prunes and carrots are a bad combination I think he likes it. The first thing you learn as a kid is the grown ups or the one in charge and the second thing you want it is the they don't always make the best decisions meet the Easter Bunny. Then you find out that the people in charge of you have have people who are in charge of them at least that's the way it is in my family where grandma is who called the shorts but you'd never know she had so much power just by looking at her I made your favorite cookies there's actually a whole story to how grandma became the head of our family when my great-grandmother and meow passed away some one needed to stop up to take her place as our leader but since grandma was the youngest of four sisters it didn't look like she be the one to take over the family.

But then something happened that changed all for Easter brunch one year grandma made a pot of meatballs and everyone went crazy for them great uncle her man declared that grandma was the best cook in the family everybody else agreed which I'm sure it was hard for her older sister. The way it works in my family is the is that if you're the best cook you get the host the big holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas bug Grandma's older sister oh live far away and don't like to travel on the holiday so great onto came up with a special recipe one up Grandma but she just couldn't talk Grandma's meatballs care for some spinach dip dance grandma introduced the special meatballs everyone's been trying to get her get her to tell them the secret recipe but Grandma's no dummy she knows that giving it upward be giving up her power. So she just tells everybody that hurt meatballs only have one ingredient and nobody seems scientific with the answers so and lately a few of my aunts have been trying to steal the recipe last Christmas auntie grandchild chin try to sneak away with a few meatballs so she could take them to love and get them analyzed for the ingredients the only reason only reason she didn't get away with it was because Grandma's dog sweetie sniff sniff them out before she could get to her car bark Bark Bark. then one night aunt audra to stay with Grandma and hit her phone and a kitchen cabinet so she could record grandma making a vantage of Meatballs but grandma discovered the hidden phone and put it in the garbage displays bodies always telling grandma her recipe is so good she should open a restaurant and make a pile of money my aunt vert very sin is a businesswoman and she came up with a plan for the whole chain of arrests of restaurants that would serve Grandma's meatballs from my kitchen to yours.

The grandma shut the idea down by saying that you can a real home cooked meal in a restaurant and are me balls were only for the family I don't mean the sound harsh or anything but I hope grandma shares her recipe with someone and the family in the family soon because she's not getting any younger in fact she just moved out of her house and into an assistant living center and a few miles away mom says and grandma's happy there because she's with people her age and they have lots of activities but hope my kids don't try and sift me off to do a place like that when I'm old because I'm actually looking forward to being to my child Hook. Grandma's turning 75 soon and my mom and her sister has told Grandma they wanted to throw a big party for her birthday but grandma says she doesn't launch anyone to go to any trouble for her and she doesn't have the energy for a party like that anymore then Grandma said what would make her really happy is if everyone else went to roti neck island where the family used The Vacation back when Mom and her sisters were kids. I guess Mom and her sisters couldn't say no to Grandma's birthday request because they feel too guilty so just like that everybody's summer plans got turned upside down which proves grandma is the one pulling the strings in our family I'm not looking forward to this trip though because I'm really not a beach person but well making happy family memories and she even the same house they said stayed in as kids to make the vacation extra special. From the picture the beach house looks a little small to me and there are a whole lot more people in the family now then there were one mom and her sisters were young but that but what I'm really nervous is that combination of people going on vacation together Mom and her sisters only see other a few times a year and there's a reason for that whenever there together all they do is fight and sometimes it gets so bad between them that Grandma has to step in to break things up so I want to say for the record that this whole trip is a bad idea the way I see it a family vacation is like our recipeand some ingredients just don't. Mom's been trying to get me and my brother's excited by showing us old photos albums from her family vacation on runteenek island but every so often there's a page where someone was cut out of a picture mom explained that if one of my own stated some boy and they broke up grandma would cut them out of the photo that's because she feels like a family photo albums are only four families all of a sudden something I always use to wonder about made sense when I was little I found an envelope stuffed with cut out out of teenagers and I've never knew who they where.

I'd play with them like they were action figures tell me where you're hiding the secret plans I'm not giving them up without a fight then prepare to meet your doom the last time mom's family went to run to next Islands she and her sisters we're in high school on tka master had a boyfriend that summer because they're we're a bunch of pictures of her next to someone who's been cut out. But when I ask mom about auntie Kickers boyfriend she said it was a long time ago and she couldn't remember anything about him I guess Grandma got cutting ex boyfriends out of photos because eventually she made a rule that you're not allowed to be a family picture do officially married in and that's a little award For venison for 6 years Always has to stand behind the camera when Our family photos. We learn our lesson about this kind of thing by taking too many pictures of noah who dated aunt veroica for a while everybody in the family love noahand he was front and center in a lot of our pictures in fact a couple of times he even made it into our family newsletter that Grandma mails out every year. Unfortunately it didn't work out between noah and aunt veroica so he vanished from the family newsletter and that made things kind of awkward whenever our family would ruin it someone who was on the mailing list hey anyone updates the Noah fella but what was even more awkward was one grandma found out noahstill had a T-shirt from our family reunion and she went to his gym to make him give it up. I think Vincent's what's planning On proposing to Aunt Impressor but I can tell she's going to milk this as long as she can be honest I really don't understand why Vincent's so eager to part of our family in fact he wants my slot I happy just hand it to him and I don't know if there are wire lawyers or paperwork involves and that kind of deal but I'd be willing to do whatever it takes to get this done. Even though I'm not looking forward to spending a week at the beach with my family there's one thing I am excited about doing and that's going out to eat mom says run to neck Island has a bunch of restaurants and I'm planning on eating at a different one every night at home we almost never go out to eat and when we do it almost always to a family style restaurant cornies so I'm looking go to a restaurant where they don't use a garden hose to clean off your table. It would also be nice to go to a place where you eat of a instead of from a bucket but I'm kind of worries about how my family might behave at a classy restaurant because the last time we ate at a fancy place it didn't go well we went out for dinner to celebrate getting her master degree and the restaurant had white wine table clothes cloth my family is used to going to places like cornies where the tablecloths are made of paper and you can draw is crayons and markers and before anyone anyone realizes what he was doing many had covered his end of the table with drawings