Basta Familia

My family has been visiting since last Thursday and will be here for another week. It's too much, I tell you, too much. The first morning I found my cousin sleeping on top of a pearl handled pistol. Are we back in prohibition? Did things get a little wild at the juke joint last night and she thought some of the boys had followed her home? No. We're in West Roxbury, one of the safest parts of Boston. Guns are unnecessary, and sleeping on one is totally unacceptable. After we fought about this she started sleeping with steak knives, which is an improvement. I think the gun has been stashed in the car, but I'm not sure what will be done about her intense paranoia.

Yesterday we had a our annual bbq, which was rained on literally--by water falling from the sky--and figuratively by all the inappropriate alcoholics. At one point I was instructed to hide a giant (1750 ml) bottle of Baileys that my uncle and his highly medicated friend seemed intent on polishing off. There was many an awkward conversation to be weaseled out of, and a couple of creepy dudes to avoid. Finally all the younger people remembered we have cars and licenses and got the hell out of there. Regrouping later at a bar where we healed the pain by creating a top 10 list of the biggest crazies of the party. But a few of the "old ones" (as my brothers call them) were still raging when I got home at midnight. It was such a fun, carefree time, I wonder why I spent my childhood glued to the desert table at family functions.