Relatively Speaking

A couple of my younger cousins from Maryland/Virginia came to visit for a couple of weeks. Combined with the cousins I have here in Indiana, it's like a freaking circus. Even one of my youngest cousins asked, when he saw me on Saturday, "Why do I have so many cousins?" They all came over to my house last night because my mom thought it'd be fun to have as spur-of-the-moment barbeque. In Chinese, we say, literally, "grill meat." But the thing about barbeques at my house is that there's very little grilling involved. For example, this time, my mom and grandma made a bunch of food, none of which remotely utilized the grill. Then my mom had me throw a few steaks on the grill, which was a meager amount compared to everything else. And so, voila, we had ourselves a barbeque. Whatever works, I guess.

Anyway, when it comes to my cousins, I always feel like I'm seeing their lives unfold like a montage. One day they're fetuses and the next thing I know they're doing algebra. I also think of it as a crudely put-together flip book. I catch glimpses in sequence, but a lot of the details are missing. And when I catch those glimpses of their social readjustments, their pimpled faces, their scholastic oppression, I think, My god, that used to be me... so glad that's over. And when I catch glimpses of their relentless energy, their unmarred youth, their relative lack of responsibility, I think, My god, that used to be me... so sad that's over.

We played some DDR, which I'm sure significantly decreased the structural integrity of our house from all those kids jumping around. I don't think our house can take much more punishment until we get a bunch of blasted items fixed around here. After most everyone left, a few of us went to play racquetball and swim at a local clubhouse. It must have been around 10:20 pm when we started playing, and we stopped around 11:45. We went around to the pool to find it locked at every door we tried. We might have trespassed a little, but we finally found one gate that was unlocked, which also happened to be our last untried option. My cousins taught me how to swim a bit. Yeah, it's true. I can barely swim. I'm surprised I didn't drown in my own amniotic fluid in the womb. I enjoy being in the water though, so swimming is something I'll just have to keep working on. I'm looking forward to taking advantage of that pool behind my new apartment. My goal is to drink less and less water every time I swim. By next year, I hope to be down to a few teaspoons.

Well, it was so late at the pool that all the lights eventually went out, and we saw some kids who looked like they were also trying to get into the pool. One kid climbed the fence but then climbed back out. We called after him to try to say that a gate was opened, but he probably thought we were shouting at him to get out or something. After I had drunk my fair share of pool water through my nose, we finally got out around 1:10 am. My younger cousin there admitted that she was hesitant about trespassing but was glad that we did. I agreed. This was one of those priceless montage moments. I swear I usually try to be a good role model, but I don't think today was one of those times.