My relatives are pretty damn cool

So, let’s see. I got in to town, and uncle dennis took me out shopping at wild oats, then to dinner at a fine japanese dining establishment. He lives in what amounts to a small, slightly architecturally troubled, work-in-progress mansion. With wireless, and great broadband.

The next day was characterized by hanging around, shooting the breeze, reading, listening to dennis go on at great length about history. Then I went to my first gun show with dad and Dennis (girl scout cookies were being sold right next to the admission tickets). Dennis, a gun enthusiast who got us to go there in the first place, bought a revolver. Dad bought a thigh holster and belt. When we got back Dennis did a little test shooting, overall, he was pretty happy with it. Though his reloads don’t always fit into the chamber so well, factory ammo fits every time, and the consistency of the accuracy was high.

I went, admittedly, a bit by way of an anthropology experiment. My knowledge of the specifics on guns is pretty limited. And gun shows are about specifics. Models, makes, materials, manufacturers, years, caliber, barrel length, etc. Not unlike cars. Though what it really reminded me of was the military hardware porn shown on the evening of the “shock & awe” bombing of Iraq. I was mostly uncreeped out by it. I have to admit, the kids with showcased rifles (without ammo, of course, but still) lying pointing at their chests, behind some of these tables were a bit unnerving for me. My long-ago gun safety course (was it really two decades ago?) where I was admonished to treat all guns like they were loaded Seemed impossibly bizarre and irrelevant in this environment. The guys there tended towards greying hair, pot bellies, and ball caps, but there were more exceptions than archetypes. There was the “gun-owning, heterosexual, republican, white, male, you got a problem with that?” t-shirt that I noticed pretty early on. Along with a few gun-wielding government agency acronym ballcaps (no gao ballcaps, I checked ;).

We spent awhile discussing gun law. I’m increasingly taken with Dean’s policy on gun control: keep it local. This may seem like stupid political weaseling, but I think that it’s a) brilliant political weaseling and b) about the best way to achieve their goals. Gun control needs are very different where you have 40 people per acre compared to places where you have 40 acres per person (neither being anywhere near the max nor min for the united states). Progressives need to realize that gun control is unlikely to achieve their ultimate goals, but that it will shoot them in the foot.

Then dinner at Granny’s, who lives not too far away. With Mom, Dad, Uncle James and Aunt Judy, and their daughters Tasha and Shana (12 and 10, respectively). Many attempts to accomodate my vegan-ness were made. Including an apple pie made with a corn oil (instead of butter) crust, as well as a sugar free (but not butter free) cherry pie to accomodate the many diabetics in the family. The deep-fried, breaded catfish still went faster than anything I was eating, but nobody blinked twice about it. Dennis went home early. My dad went to lay down, feeling a little uncomfortable (I would cite probable overfull belly as the cause). A few conversations ensued. We got to discussing medical stuff (dennis is a dr, my dad is a dr, mom is a shrink, granny is not young, judy works in a dr’s office, and I worked for a clinic, this is not a shocking topic).

Somehow we got onto shots, practicing shots, and blood draws. I shared some of my clinic experiences with training on shots and blood draws. James (perhaps my uncle most prone to baiting people, though it would be a contest) asked if I’d ever donated blood. I said no. He asked why not. I said they don’t want my blood. He asked why, and I said “they don’t want your blood if you’re a man who’s had sex with a man since 1960-whatever, long before I was born.” Quite a way to come out to judy & james, but I knew they knew, and I suspect they knew that I knew that they knew. James requested clarification, as if he hadn’t heard me, to which judy replied a little sharply that he knew, and that he’d known before he’d asked the question. I said that I’d heard that they’d known, but I wasn’t sure how they felt about it, and judy said that they felt it was my place, and definitely not theirs to bring it up. Not quite in so many words, but that’s the sense I got of it.

I think mom brought the conversation onto the medical software package put out by the family software company (dennis was one of the founders, and his office was the first one using it. Dad followed suit a couple years back.) Judy works on that. James started making hints that he wanted to go home. But Judy was involved in a conversation. And while she promised to “love, honor, and obey” in the wedding ceremony, I’m pretty sure she’d forgotten that last part by the time the wedding reception was on, deliberately.

Eventually, they got ready to go. I hitched a ride back with them, since they live pretty close to dennis. Judy asked about my clinic experience. James asked what an std was (I was trying to be obfuscatory for the kids in the car), so I spelled it out. Judy asked about my most pleasant childhood experience (and that really made me think). Then she asked about my least pleasant one. And I told her that involved strangers doing things to me that strangers ought not do. Censoring for the kids, sorta. If they’d asked, and I made sure they understood the significance of what they were asking, I’d answer in a non-detailed way, but I’m not about to get into that sort of thing in front of them and their parents, especially without knowing that they want to know. An awkward pause later, I told them about running through the house, accidentally kicking the fan, and breaking my toe, turning it into a lesson for her kids about running through the house 😉 I’m pretty sure their eyes were rolling, but judy was amused at least.

Today it was dennis’s turn to make lunch/dinner. I helped out. Dinner rolls, a renamed, formerly politically-incorrectly-titled barbeque sauce over chicken, miso soup, chicken and dumplings, pan fried chicken, dinner rolls, veggies, scalloped potatoes with and without mushrooms (my mom’s deathly allergic to mushrooms) and the return of the pies. Tasha, Shana, and Judy were watching the U of K basketball game. people arrived later than expected, and dennis had started eating. After the game was over, tasha, shana and judy came over and partook, somewhat dejected by the local U’s basketball loss. They didn’t want to talk about it. Several hands of a card game called Pitch were played. It’s a trick taking card game. If I’d given it my undivided attention, I could probably have caught the rules, but it didn’t match the rules I browsed while doing a little catching up on lj. Or the second set of rules. It’s apparently mutated more than HIV.

I wandered out into the living room, where I was ambushed by judy to discuss sexuality, religion, and relatives, which lasted for at least an hour or two. She’s convinced that deep down I still believe in “a higher power”, and I’m just not admitting it to myself. She accepted that my beliefs may actually have changed because that means they could change again. She and tasha think that believing in evolution is crazy. I offered the comic book version of it. I skipped the basic mechanics of it because … I’m not sure why. I explained the notion of primordial soup, and molecules clinging together, mitochondria forming and migrating into the cell, but didn’t say anything about mutation, or about the effects of selective breeding (as has been done with corn for thousands of years, I think they could have appreciated that), nor about survival of the fittest (I’m _sure_ they could have appreciated that). I mentioned that some people felt that evolution and the bible didn’t conflict at all if you viewed the bible as allegorical, and granny chimed in that she felt that was exactly how she saw things.

Dad finished Cordelia’s Honor, and liked it. I loaned mom A Civil Campaign. She said she’d definitely read it. I wonder if/how she’ll like it… =) Apparently, she and Granny are leaning towards Grisham these days (I’ve never read any of that).

That’s the big things of the weekend. There’s definitely something to this whole family similarities thing. We are all a bunch of independent-minded, opinionated, resourceful, maybe smart people. I probably identify more with dennis than I do with any other person I’ve spent much time around. Yeah, the guy that took me to a gun show. He has a phenomenal knowledge and appreciation of history, even from well before his time. I haven’t made much time to spend with my family. Something I plan on correcting. Dennis had a saddening story to tell as we were on the way back from the airport. He has the family heart disease problem. He thinks he won’t even make it as long as dad will. I think it’d be a shame to miss the opportunity to get to know him better while he’s around.