A Weekend With Family

I am beginning to regret having had that bowl of split pea soup...

A fair amount has happened since I last wrote. Friday I did a whole lotta nuthin'. I can't even recall what I did so it musn't have been memorable. Early on Saturday morning, I hit the road for Eau Claire. It felt a bit odd as it was the first time I'd ever driven up there without the intention of seeing my father. while they were always pensive times (indeed, you can go back in my archives here and read some entries conceived on such journeys) and this one was no different but it was not laced with the normal apprehension I'd become used to over the past 13 out of 14 years. I wasn't going to have to deal with an alcoholic nor a man sunken into perdition. Relationships with one's parents are similar to quantum physics in that they both have that spooky action at a distance. In the world of quantum mechanics, it involves being able to change the state of a particular particle which would, in turn, produce a change in the state of another particle vast distances away which is entagled with the first. On the human scale, this means that, even though our parents may not be in close proximity, we still tend to judge ourselves and our actions but how well they'd go over with those that gave us life. Up until 1999, the two and a half hour drives were spent building mental defenses as I would have to ward off my father's constant barrage of questions which barely concealed his incredulity that my life did not mirror his. After my stepmother became ill and passed away, my time spent driving was used to marshall all the strength I could to deal with a broken man drinking himself to death.

But this last time was most refreshingly different. No father to deal with, just step-relatives to Visit and spend time with. About 60 miles north of Madison, the traffic thinned and the sun appeared from behind the clouds. The appearance of the refulgent orb was quite a surprise as the forecast had called for clouds and possible rain all weekend.

While I had directions to my stepbrother Freddy's house, Mapquest was fucked but I remembered enough Eau Claire geography to find it just fine. As I pulled up, my stepsister Kelly, Freddy's wife Marnie, and their daughter Tiny were pulling out to make a quick run to the shoe store. Kelly noticed it was me and greeted me with a hug as I got out of my car. They took off and I went inside where Freddy was cleaning the house up a bit. We shot the shit for a while and he showed me pictures of the family vacation to Disneyland. Or was it Disneyworld? The one in Florida. Anyway, we caught up and, after a short while, the ladies got had returned. Kayla, Marnie's daughter from a previous marriage had really grown up since I last saw her. She was this tall beanpole and in the third grade. And Tiny - last time I saw here she was just a fetus waiting to be born and now she was about 2. We gathered ourselves together and headed to Fritz's house.

Fritz is my stepmom's brother. A really nice guy - and funny too. His wife, Mo, is just a doll. Friendly and cordial and she's been putting up with Fritz for decades.At the house dozens of relatives and friends had gathered for a memorial to my stepgrandmother who passed away in February. I was surprised that I recognized many of them. They had been out to my dad's place when I was there for one of the many dinner parties he and Joni threw or had stopped by there for a visit. More surprisingly, several of them remembered me. And Jeff was there. Jeff is another one of my stepbrothers and he lives in Los Angeles whereas Kelly, Freddy, and Frankie live in Eau Claire. Joni had Jeff with her first husband while everyone else was fathered by her 2nd husband. Jeff and I get along really well. He's the most cosmopolitan of my stepsiblings and we have a lot in common. For instance, we both are into computers and have pretty mellow dispositions. We just seem to have the most in common and clicked the first time we met.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to pause and explain something. Technically, none of these people are my step-anything. My dad and Joni never married but they were together for about 14 years and lived together for 11 of them. But I consider them step-relatives anyway. If nothing else, it's shorter and easier than saying "My dad's girlfriend's blah blah blah." This came up actually, as I was walking over to the cemetary. Zoe, a woman who, 15 years ago, had been a foreign exchange student that lived with Fritz and Mo, asked how I fitted into the picture and, since Jeff was walking in front of me, I just said that he was my stepbrother. Mo nodded approvingly and explained the technicalities but agreed that, for all intents and purposes, he and I were stepbrothers. It must also be said that I really didn't see these people very much so it's not like we're really close. But, unlike my dad, I am the gregarious type and easy-going so I tend to get along with people quickly. And so it was with Joni's family. Every one of them I've ever met has been friendly and cordial to me and so I to them. Thusly we've all gotten along great. As I said, I never saw much of them since I live in Madison so we're not particularly close but we all enjoy one another's company quite a bit.

Having said all of this, it was great to see everyone again. I mingled and took pictures for a while before everyone wandered over to the cemetary where Irene's ashes were to be buried. It was a short memorial - just a few people making speeches, a prayer, and a song played on a wooden flute hoolie not unlike a recorder. The song was played by a black man who really stood out but this didn't seem to be a problem. I never did find out his name but I think he was married to one of Joni's neices. The piece he played was traditionally played at such ceremonies in his native land of wherever he's from originally. An African country that I cannot recall. I learned a few things about Irene. She was high school valedictorian and was beloved by a particular teacher of her because she took multiple years of Latin. (This really endeared me to her memory!) She had gone to college and - I feel stupid for not recalling this bit - was the first woman in Eau Claire to do something. Something that had been heretofore been the exclusive domain of men. I'd known her to be smart and funny but had no idea that she was basically the Mother Jones of west-central Wisconsin. After everyone had their say, the urn with the ashes was placed in the ground and a few people threw dirt on it. We then wandered back to Fritz's house.

The first order of business was to take a group picture with my funky camera. It would probably be the last time that all of these people would be gathered in one place so it had to be taken and Jeff volunteered to have it blown up and have prints made since he works at a graphics place in LA. So he and I got a board which we balanced very precariously on the handles at the top of the pool slide. A vigorous shake and the camera would tumble into the pool itself. We got the timer set and voila! We took 4 or 5 for coverage. It seems odd to be in the family portrait of a family that isn't technically mine but, hey - like I said before, they are in spirit. We ate and talked. Oddly enough, there was no alcohol and this made Kelly ansy. So, under the guise of going to get Frank, who was moving that day, we headed to the Ten Pin Tap.

The Ten Pin is the bar that Joni used to tend at and was where she and my father met. Kelly has been hanging out there for years now. So we had a beer and waited for Freddy and Marnie to show up before heading back to Fritz's. She and I talked about what was going on in Eau Claire and about my dad. About how he had hit on her and made many an off-color remark after Joni's death. In general, about lots of dumb crap that happened but stuff that we could now laugh at as time had passed as well as Joni and my father. When Freddy and Marnie showed up, the conversation continued. Freddy and my dad did not get along and they even came to blows one time. But I felt comfortable talking about these things. I felt no irritation about any of it, no embarrassment at my father. It was reminiscing - it was in the past and done.

We moseyed back to Fritz's and hung out for a while longer. Then I went back to Freddy's with Kelly. There we chilled in the backyard with some beer and Marnie lit the grill to cook up some steaks. Tiny then became interested in me. First she had me push her around in her car. After that, I returned to the table and sat drinking and talking. Then she came up to me and asked me to swing. So I went over to one of the pine trees in the yard where Freddy had put up a swing. I put Tiny on it and pushed her. She went higher and higher with each push until her tiny feet would hit one of the branches. As she swung forward, she would yell, "Whee!" and start laughing. And I had a blast with her. When Tiny had had enough of that, she made me play in one of the horseshoe pits, er, sandboxes. We filled a bucket and placed toys on top of it. Tiny then dumped it on one of her legs so we buried it completely. Ah, the simple joys of life - burying the leg of a two year-old in sand.

I went inside to use the bathroom and found Freddy pulling bong hits and playing a game on his computer. He lured me in and gave me his woeful story about how he had networked his computers together but the game, Battlefield 1942, wouldn't work on the 2nd PC. Being a PC tech and never one to step down from a challenge, I set out to fix it. And I did. So we played the game for a few hours and drank beer. It is a really neat game and I think I liked the Omaha Beach module the best. Charging up this hill behind a Sherman tank while Panzers gathered up yonder. Freddy and I were yelling and asking where the other was. Just a blast!

While we were playing, Tiny would come up to me and snuggle onto my lap. Both of my arms were outstretched to man the controls so she'd just curl up with her head resting on one of them. I was able to brush up on my multitasking skills. It's no mean feat to hold a conversation with a two year-old that's wiggling around in your lap while trying to kill Nazis, I can tell you. Tiny wandered off for a while but soon came back and asked me to take her to the bathroom. Freddy told her to get mommy and she disappeared. A short while later, I had to take a leak from having drank several Rolling Rocks. Wandering into the bathroom, I found Tiny standing there naked while hovering over the toilet. She pointed into the bowl and exclaimed, "I took poo by myself!!" I laughed. At this point, she started running around the house naked with poop smeared on her little behind. I didn't let her get on my lap again.

Around midnight, we hit the sack.

I woke up early but managed to fall back asleep before getting up permanently at 8:30 or so. I watched a spot of TV before Frankie started knocking on the door. I let him in and Freddy wandered downstairs. They eventually took off to finish up Frank's move. No one else stirred so I went over to Fritz and Mo's. There were a few people there having breakfast and talking so I joined them. Zoe, the ex-foreign exchange student was among them. She was gorgeous. And, being from the UK, had a sexy accent. I'm sorry but women with accents other than that of the Midwestern US just have something extra about them. Especially non-Americans. She also wore a v-neck t-shirt so, whenever she'd bend over to feed her infant son, I'd take a gander at her breasts. Anatomy aside, Zoe was a wonderful person. Very friendly and funny. Unfortunately, Jeff wasn't around but, rather, was out golfing with an old high school buddy of his. So I chatted with everyone for a while before taking a shower. After that, I helped Fritz clean the garage and put away all the tables and such from the day before. Two thirty rolled around and I decided to hit the high road. I had really hoped to have a chance to hang with Jeff for a while before leaving but he was still gone. Our paths will cross again even if I have to fly out to Los Angeles.

The drive home was pretty hectic. Being a Sunday afternoon, the interstate was packed with people returning home after a weekend of traveling. It had been really great to see everyone again and I couldn't understand why my dad had spent so much time avoiding these people or fretting over having to spend time with them. I had a good time and was able to talk about my father with people who knew him, people who could tell their own stories and fill in the picture of the man.

On the one hand, it reinforced a certain sense of regret that I've begun to get to know or get back in contact with certain people becuase of my father's death. But, on the other hand, I'm grateful to have these people in my life at all.