Lineage

My parents were married last weekend in a lovely little ceremony in one of Tulare, California's two Catholic churches. Yes, they were married already, but not in the eyes of the Church, a point that has lately become vitally important to my dad. He wanted this so badly, so earnestly, that The Engineer and I even refrained from making cracks about the burden of growing up in a small town as bastards. This was no small feat, holding back the quips. The Engineer and I are legendary smartasses.

It was a lovely, ceremony, custom-made for my mom, who is still not Catholic, and my dad, who can no longer kneel on command. Father Rick did a wonderful job of accommodating them and making all of us - Catholics, Methodists and atheists, gay and not gay, young and old - feel welcome and included. Our family beamed proudly from the pews as The Engineer, Big Guy and I stood up for our parents and saw them married.

And then this happened.


Here's the thing. If you put me a room with a bunch of loonies, I'll naturally become the straight woman. Nothing I like better than standing back and making wry observations about people as they make asses of themselves. I like it when events have something that makes them memorable. When it seems like there's no chance of that happening, when everything seems like it's going to be staid and, well, ordinary, it triggers something in me.

When yet another group was gathering behind my flash-addled parents, that something fired. "Oh for God's sake! Why don't we ALL get in the picture at the same time? You don't like how you look in pictures? I'll fix it so that nobody's looking at you, then. Problem solved!"

I come by this trait honestly, and through a woman who had been dead some fifty years when I was born. Guess which one of these women is my grandmother? Yes, that would be her on the right, Miss Grace Loinaz. For the longest time, this was the only picture of her that we had.


A couple of years ago, we found my grandfather's photo album and came across this picture. My dad's sister Madeleine is pretty sure that this is also Grace. Wearing a man's clothes. Backwards.


My father and Aunt Matt weren't old enough when she died to remember anything about her. Anyone else who might have known her has long since passed beyond the vale. These pictures of Grace are all that we have of her.

I think I would have liked her. I hope she would have liked me.

The Haps

Behold the 'Mo!


Ah, yeah. It's coming along nicely.

We're at the halfway mark, which means there's still plenty of time to get in on the action. It's tax deductible, and it's an important cause, both for the research and for the education. If you don't have a few bucks to give, please at least give the men in your life a little nudge to get tested for it. I had a guy come up to me at work yesterday and ask me what a prostate was. He wasn't kidding. "Would I know if I had one?" Oh, dude. I can't even explain it to you without getting sent to HR, but yes, you most likely have a prostate. Maybe I'm more aware of the issue because my grandfather died from prostate cancer, and my dad's dying from prostate cancer, and so many other men I know have had it. It's amazing to me that it's not something that every man knows about and gets tested for.

I'm almost done with the first front of Sienna, although I'm pretty sure I managed to screw up my improvised shaping. I'm going with it anyway because, like Big Guy, I'm all about moving forward. I don't have pictures of it yet.

So many fascinating things happening in Bananaland! We moved onto the friendliest street in Contra Costa County. Our new neighbors sold us one of their keg refrigerators, so now we have beer on tap in our garage.

My parents are getting remarried in three weeks and we're inviting two hundred people to the wedding. I've now found a reason to get back into a physical training regime. I'm planning on wearing a dress that absolutely does not fit me as of this moment.

I took the train down to see them last week, and my mom lost track of what time I was supposed to arrive, so I sat at the Hanford train station for two hours. I met some lovely people and learned valuable life lessons. I learned that, while "I'm black and you're white, and we get along fine, right?", it's just not possible for blacks and whites to get along with Latinos because, in the words of my new friend Anthony, "wetbacks won't ever give you a dollar, man." I also learned that I have something called "woman ways", and if I'd really needed another dollar to call my mom from the payphone, I could have used said "ways" to get it. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of Anthony, Miss Budweiser-in-a-Big-Gulp or the Latino gentleman who denied Anthony his very reasonable request for money, because I didn't want to take out my camera in front of them.

Instead, please content yourself with this lovely shot of Mount Diablo, taken from my very own bedroom window just this morning. Sure, the keg refrigerator and the bonfires in the courtyard are nice, but this is really why we moved.

MoVember Update - Day Eight

The Australians are questioning Accountant Boy's manliness!


Obviously, this displeases him.

He's lost his lead to an e-commerce guy. "I call shenanigans! Isn't it kind of suspicious that he's pulled ahead? The guy who does web-based marketing? Huh? HUH???"

"Uh, no. It kind of makes sense, actually..."

"SHENANIGANS!"

It's not his fault that he's competing with public-facing sales guys and he's stuck in the back office. They used to call him The Rock, but now they've started calling him The Pebble.

If you, dear readers, or anyone you know is so inclined to give to a worthy, tax-deductible cause, please follow the linky. Let's' show the Aussies how we do things in the U-S-of-A!


In other news, look what I've been doing! Knitting! I think it's going to be the Sienna cardigan from last fall's Interweave Knits, but I can't decide if I want to do something different at the fronts. More on this later, as it becomes more than just ribbing.

MoVember

Movember!

I'd never heard of it, either. Accountant Boy's merry band of Australian coworkers challenged him to join them this year, and he's throwing himself into it with glee. Yes, he's growing a moustache. For charity.


This year's USA Movember cause is prostate cancer research, an issue close to the heart of the FamilyBanana. We're all touched that A.B. is stepping up to the plate on this one.

I'll admit that I am more than a little concerned about the nascent moustache. I like A.B. with a beard, sure, for a few days maybe. It's rugged and manly. But a moustache alone? All bushy and Tom Selleck-y and requiring grooming tools? For the whole month? What if he goes all Gunther on me? Our marriage might not recover. So far, it's still in the realm of good taste, not crossing the border into Pornoland. Then again, the month is still young.

Here is the direct link to my man's 'mo sponsorship page. Click and give!

Yes, I will be posting updates as the month goes along. He's only a couple of days away from it being distinguishable from his normal stubble. I shudder to think...

Tiny

This is it - the first picture ever taken of me.

I was born somewhere around two and a half months early. I weighed a little more than two pounds. It was 1970, and it was a small-town hospital, and I was so tiny that all of the doctors and most of the nurses thought I would die within hours. They gently told my mom to go home and wait for the call.

She did get a call, but it wasn't the one she was expecting. One of the nurses phoned and said, "I drew the short straw to call you, but I don't think this is right. I can tell that she wants to live!" Through some clandestine manueuvers, the two of them worked to get me transferred to the larger hospital in the next town.

I spent the next two months in an incubator, not because there was anything wrong with my lungs, or because I wasn't well. I was just small, and they didn't know what else to do with me.


This is the first picture that I have where I'm not behind plastic. I have no idea how old I am here. Maybe four months? My dad looks like a giant holding me in his enormous hands. I'm taller than he is now, but his hands still envelope mine completely.