Dad and Mary Lou at the family reunion.
My cousins all know about this website now. I got email from Cousin David in Woodland asking when I was going to have the Huntzinger Family Pages up and running. Eek. Better get on that. I have a layout sketched out, and some preliminary pages, but they basically look like what I've already got and I'm bored with this design. Since I'm also webmaster of the Corflu 18 page and we've just signed a contract with the hotel in Boston I absolutely, positively need to get that thrashed out and accessible right away. People will be wanting to buy memberships and we need the money up front.
Too bad I have a busy social life planned for the next two weeks. Well, too bad for the social life, perhaps.
I'm getting excited about my housewarming party. I'm going to get some tiki torches and stick them around the back yard. I've wanted to do that for ages, but I never gave parties in Nashville, and John and I've never lived anywhere else with a back yard. I'm going to have a theme. The theme is going to be Early American Polynesian Cocktail Lounge. I'm going to have lots of tiki stuff, and white plastic chairs on the lawn, and the lava lamp will be in a prominent position next to the plush Easter Island Head. I'll have dim sum and little meatballs and teriyaki chicken wings and lots of beer and wine (no hard liquor which isn't very Cocktail Lounge of us but honestly, none of our friends drink cocktails). There will be lounge music playing, and plastic leis for the guests, and if I get inspired I'll probably find some grass hut fixings. I am totally jazzed about having a party. I hope it will be warm enough to entice people to stay outside because there is no way everyone who's said they're coming is going to fit inside the house if the wind suddenly develops into a sirocco.
I love parties. Love having guests over. John isn't wild about it. He isn't addicted to bonhomie the way I am.
He did very well at the reunion, by the way. He's not entirely resigned to the amount of hugging we do, but he copes. He was charming and outgoing without any prompting on my part, and I think this is how it should be, but he had to learn to be like that. His family's idea of a hot evening is to have tv dinners on trays in front of the tv. Their phone conversations are a series of grunts. When Mary, my sister-in-law, announced her pregnancy last year I squealed excitedly. Our other sister-in-law said, "Oh." And she was really happy and everything! That was it. "Oh." The Bartelts are a silent, reserved group. I like them, but I feel like an exotic tropical parrot around them.
Actually, I tend to feel that way around my own family. Well, you can see what I mean: look at that lovely and restrained palette my Dad and his wife wear, all pale blues and linens and neutral tones. Me, I was wearing a bright cerulean blue silk shirt at the family reunion. I stand out in a group photo. But somehow it all works together: a splash of color, a quiet warmth, a family resemblance, a feeling of solidarity, a lot of laughter. Kind of like me and John.
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