meetings

last night was a bit of a monumentous occasion for the family. i make it sound bigger than it is, and make us sound like a Society for Organized Crime and Kipper (aptly, SOCK) or something, but i find that we in the family seem to measure things a certain way.

the last monumentous occasion anywhere near being the sort this one was that i can remember was when one of the twins got married, and when his son, Sean, our first ever nephew, was born.
of course, those were undoubtedly monumentous. last night's little event is on a whole different order of monumentousness.

finally, after years of planning and not-pushing-through-for-some-reason, we cousins got around to meeting up for dinner-drinks-and-coffee.

i hear other families do that sort of thing all the time. granted, we do it, too, but it was the first time we got around to it sans (as my friend CJ over at Cyberlaundry would call 'em) "parentals".

we're all grown-up, it seems. and hey, after an average of thirty years, it's about time, yeah?

the 'el padrino' among us cousins, hizzonah Dr Jose "Jojo" Simpao, has been in Missouri (or some other state beginning with 'M') for thirteen years, but flew in last weekend for the bon voyage dinner of his sister, Kaye, who will also be leaving to work and live in the US, albeit in Michigan (or some other state beginning with 'M'). they both fly back out on Thursday.

while dinner over the weekend was all good, wholesome, clean family fun, complete with two-year old literally bouncing off the walls, we wanted to get away from the watchful eyes of the so-called "parentals" to where we could let our collective hair down, and we decided that, with a couple of us leaving for the US on a more-or-less permanent basis, it was high time we did. so we did.

last night was all good, wholesome, clean family fun. sans the two-year-old-bouncing-off- the-walls entertainment package, but we were able to let our collective hair down, which was the whole point of it. and do it in the company of family who were also friends.

a novel experience for me, yet totally comfortable and pleasant by all means. i'm glad of it. in fact, as i often say, immensely pleased we got around to it.

*

we'd called it a night around ten-ish, it being a work night, after all, and no one was going to be responsible for anyone else "not-getting-to-work-on-time" the next day, or, possibly (heaven forbid) "not-getting-there-at-all" (we're still all family, after all, remember, and this was done out-of-home), and, driving home, i'd thought the night was done.

only i'd remembered i'd promised Mitch she could borrow my microscope, and had loaded the thing in the car.

so i drove over to her apartment to drop it off and, as she wasn't there, called her on her cell to let her know i'd done so.

'Who're you talking to?' i heard a familiar voice say in the background. She told him. "Tell him to join us for coffee."

it was, well, you might call him one of my old bosses. i didn't really feel like 'calling it a night' just yet, so i obliged, changed course and found my way to where they were having coffee.

i count myself lucky for having all these people, friends and my family ready to spend an hour or two or three simply chatting it up, and the latitude my current job allows me for my personal life makes it all worthwhile.

i love being able to see people as people, and not as, say, authority figures. which is as good a reason as any, in my mind, for quitting a job you hate, where the people aren't necessarily spectacular, aren't always rational or agreeable, but are always interesting and, in the end, worth knowing...

'Don't you miss all this?' says my old boss after an anecdote about a particularly disagreeable person from work that's one of the stories that help form the foundations of interesting conversation in the closeted world of my old job.

'Well,' i says, 'i miss the people.'