And left us with serious hangovers.

In fact, Mr. Y has only just emerged and he's not doing too well this morning.

The barbecue was a success, I am happy to say. We had a huge turnout, the food went over a storm, including Mr. Y's own recipe hamburgers and my homemade apple pie (it looked so good, I just wanted to take photos of it.), and the alcohol flowed like a river. Our homemade dips were demoloshed and the Delia Smith potato salad was gorgeous.

The potato salad was almost not made-you see, I have a bit of a beef with Delia. Delia Smith is England's version of Martha Stewart but without the weird arts and crafts, just the neuortic cooking. She has lovely recipes that border a bit on the obsessive (i.e. one of her recipes says: You must make sure all of the bowl is scraped clean!)

Right.

Anyway, Mr. Y mentioned that she had a summer cookbook, and it had 4th of July recipes in it. As in American 4th of July recipes. And this really wound me up-I mean, I have no authority to write recipes on a traditional English Christmas pudding. Nor can I write about a Swedish Julbord. Just because I have experienced them doesn't mean I am an expert. So where does this Delia Cow get off?

Mr. Y bought me the recipe book as a joke, and I admit it has some good stuff in there. But one of her suggestions for a 4th of July dish? A Cos, Weber and Rocket salad with blue cheese dressing.

Now, it wasn't until I moved here that I even know what Cos, Weber, and Rocket were. What American deigns to make a salad out of this at their 4th of July? Anyone? Isn't the traditional fare burgers, hot dogs, ribs, wings, chips, potato salad, dips, and pies or ice cream? I mean...really?

I called my aunt and uncle (my uncle is my father's brother) who live about an hour away, to discuss arrangements for them coming on Sunday, and talked for a long while with my Aunt Carol.

And I have to admit I was a bit glad that Aunt Carol couldn't make it.

Talking to her was a real trip.

She kept trying to reassure either me or herself that moving here for two years was the right thing to do. That this is an experience, that they should learn and grow from it. That they will enjoy their two years here and then never leave the U.S. again.

But she complained bitterly about the school system-my youngest cousin Mary attends a state school (public school in U.S. talk) and Nancy boards at a school in London that is only for the children of American servicemen. She is in a tightly controlled, thoroughly American atmosphere and only has to "deal with those Brits" as my aunt put it, when she leaves the base.

Those Brits?

They're not so bad.

My aunt and I talked a while, her venting mostly, and I found out the goings-on of my family. Namely, that some of them are coming here and I wasn't even asked to see them. Must be all that black wool I am covered in.

I don't think I could get any more ostracized if I tried.

My Uncle John and cousin Nancy showed. They were a bit late, but they showed. I haven't seen either of them in almost 10 years, and wow have they both changed. Nancy is tiny, and Uncle John is Army fighting fit. The last time I saw Nancy was in my Japanese grandmother's house, there were too many people there, she was annoying the shit out of me, and I was trying to figure out how I could slip her some her poisoned sushi.

I liked her right away last night.

She was bubbly and cute and eager. She was also completely submissive to my Uncle John. It was clear that things were run a certain way in their household, a way that makes me shudder. Someone offered her a beer, and my uncle barked that she was only 17-which would mean she can get a pint in England, but not in the U.S. Personally, I don't see the harm in her having one beer when she is with family-it sure beats her having benders when she is alone or with friends. And when she went for a piece of my apple pie, he admonished her.

"Nancy! Remember you have a weigh-in tomorrow. You don't need any of that." She immediately put the knife down on the side of the pie pan.

I felt my skin crawl and my blood boil. She has a weigh-in tomorrow? Is he for real? She's a girl, not a soldier. Cracks like that are what therapy was made to fix.

"Nance?" I asked. "The pie itself is low-fat. It does has quite a bit of sugar, but if you skip the custard, you don't have to feel at all guilty." She grinned at me, I grinned back, and she cut a small slice.

They left early on, with promises for us to all meet up. Mr. Y had spent masses of time talking to them and making them comfortable, so after walking John and Nancy to their car, we walked back to the real party hand in hand, me oozing gooey darts of love for this man who worked so hard on my barbecue, this man that I think my family would really like, if they ever took a chance to try.

The rest of the evening went great. At one point, the skies opened up and we dashed for cover under the gazebo that had been set up, but the party carried on. Mr. Y had strung lights everywhere, so as people made sure their wine didn't get wet, we trooped on under the lit gazebo and had a lovely time.

I got talking to one of my neighbors, a man named Rick. Rick is a grizzled and grumpy man in his mid-50's, who is so negative he makes Archis Bunker look like the skipper on the Good Ship Lollipop. He thought he could annoy me by making lots of Yankee jokes but when he saw that it didn't rattle my cage, he grinned, and told me I was acceptable. Then he told me about his last year, as he's been battling cancer (I think it's my face. I think I must have an honest face, and that's why people talk to me about their personal issues). His treatment is difficult and painful, and his next round starts up in September.

I listened to him, not commenting, while he talked about it. At the end, I smiled. "Well, if you feel like talking then, you can come over and talk to me."

"I don't need your pity!" he snarled.

"Don't be an asshole." I replied. "I'm not talking about holding your hand, for God's sake. I was just going to offer you a shot of whiskey if you needed it."

He looked at me. A smile went across his face. "You're all right...for a Yank."

High praise indeed.

The party went on until about 1:00 am. There were just 5 of us left, and we were three sheets to the wind by then. We were telling outrageously funny jokes, jokes so great they had our sides splitting. They were real corkers, like the following:

Q: What is brown and sticky?
A: A stick.

Right.

Seemed much funnier last night.

-H.

PS-Sorry Miguel. But I have to confess-I was cheering for Greece.

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 11:30 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
Post contains 1282 words, total size 7 kb.

1 Sounds like you had a great time And as I said....showers around here seems to appear from nowhere

Posted by: croxie at July 05, 2004 12:38 PM (KTeQw)

2 Sounds like a good time was had by all, or at least most. But excuse me, a weigh-in?! Is Nancy a pro boxer or something?

Posted by: Gudy at July 05, 2004 12:56 PM (Z6JJ8)

3 My guess is that your cousin is a jockey in training. Sounds like a great party.

Posted by: Random Penseur at July 05, 2004 01:00 PM (X3Lfs)

4 ... not you too, Helen...! There were 2000 Greeks making noise all night 250 meters away from my house, not you too, please! Anyway, they were very funny and cool, in that gay god sort of way ;-(. The goddesses looked mad and angry all the time, but not one of them ugly. One girl actually kissed me on the cheek, but she had blue and white lipstick. Took all the fun away. Almost. Miguel. p. s. - glad to ear you had a good 4th of July... sounded great. Now go get Y some sparkling water. I´ve got mine here beside me...

Posted by: msd at July 05, 2004 01:03 PM (E8khj)

5 I'm glad you had a good time! And WOW I love the new layout!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: Onyx at July 05, 2004 03:08 PM (G3591)

6 Whoa! For a moment I thought that I had clicked on the wrong link...and then I saw your face and that way-too-cute hat! Cool! Sounds like you had a jubilient 4th

Posted by: Marie Freeman at July 05, 2004 03:47 PM (PQxWr)

7 I'm glad your bbq was a success. I'm still in the dark (even after googling!) to see what Cos, Weber and Rocket are (is?) since you only mentioned that they're ingredients in a salad of some sort. Now I'm curious. I'm so glad you had a good time and got to catch up with SOME of your family. The others sound like they could use a nice long walk off a short pier.

Posted by: Lisa at July 05, 2004 05:21 PM (uxfbz)

8 Love the new look H and I'm glad you had a fab 4th of July BBQ. Lisa: cos, weber and rocket are all types of lettuce.

Posted by: Gareth at July 05, 2004 05:58 PM (NHA9E)

9 Rocket = arugula I had to learn that one when using fitday.com, also that american's only use 'corn' for sweetcorn.. Glad the party went well, the weekend's been a bit hit and miss weatherwise, so the gazebo was a godsend and a sharp move by Mr. Y..

Posted by: sasoozie at July 05, 2004 07:12 PM (40GDn)

10 sounds like a lovely bbq. i love how you told rick not to be an asshole. (i'm taking notes.) and yay Greece! The bf's father called him this morning to rave about the game. he said, "see, we usually just fight all the time, but when we come together...ah! victory!" :-)

Posted by: kat at July 05, 2004 07:43 PM (qEQy+)

11 Thank you Gareth! And also Sasoozie.

Posted by: Lisa at July 06, 2004 04:11 AM (uxfbz)

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