EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/piejb73.png)
Bottom left is my parents, top right is hers. her father is off the map by another forty or so minutes. The fact her father works out of state notwithstanding, you can imagine some of the difficulties involved with getting some of these people together
When I say that our two families are very different, I mean it in the best of ways, because the disparities are so stark at times it can be borderline sitcom-ish. Her mother, is a lovely individual, very representative of Minnesota Lutheran though this requires some amount of explanation. On the most general of curves Minnesotan's take offense to the broadly ascribed stereotypes the Cohen Brother's were goodly enough to popularize with the movie Fargo, at least in the Twin Cities. In reality there are shades of the characters scattered throughout the state, even in the Twin Cities, and her mother would be approaching a shade of Fargo. This isn't a slight in the least, but as the off spring of a North Dakotan (Where Fargo is actually located, the Minnesota side is called Moorhead by the way) and a Minnesotan, the accent it is a bit difficult to escape.
For those who aren't familiar with the general idea of the Minnesotan Accent, a scene from the movie Fargo. It is an odd bastardization of the largely German and Swedish accents which were much more common a century ago. This conversation with regards to weather, accent notwithstanding, is spot on as well
A lot of these Minnesota-isms stem from very subdued, passive aggressive social graces that most would say come from the same, aforementioned Swedish, German, and or Norwegian Cultures that constituted much of the European settlers who opted to freeze their asses off here instead of live somewhere sensible.
Truest thing about Minnesota ever.
Now I've slid off track a bit here, but if I were to contrast our two mothers in a concise fashion it would be that my mother routinely says the word cunt without batting an eye, and hers was quite enthralled at the Christian Bluegrass festival she attended in Lindstrom, MN the weekend before. While these two descriptions are by no means mutually exclusive, or oil and water, you can appreciate why I would be nervous about bringing these two lovely women together. In tow was her brother, who is a Smash player and despite being generally shy a good guy.
Despite what I would term my better judgement, but is in reality just my normal, shitty judgment, my own siblings were in attendance too. Generally, among familiar crowds, it is difficult to get a word in edgewise as my family recycles stories about people getting sick from drinking at a family holiday, someone pissing themselves (literally) while laughing and drunk, or stories of widely varying chemical indulgence, but they were surprisingly tame this go around and for that I am thankful.
This far down I've neglected to mention that this was a roundabout celebration of the three birthdays we are to celebrate in the month of July, four if you count my girlfriend's mother, for women who are all too old to really give a shit about birthdays. That being said there was an irresponsible amount of bacon present for this brunch so I cannot complain. The fare was kept respectfully simple, this again is another flag of some more Midwestern traits. Her mother was impressed when I got my own girlfriend to go out for Vietnamese food, as wild and crazy as rice noodles, braised beef, and salad are, we didn't want to scare them off with too much of the relative wild and strange.
Bacon, eggs, Au Gratin potatoes, sausage, spicy sausage, caprese bites were the name of the game, and I was pleased that both her brother and mother seemed to go a bit out of their comfort zones food wise. While I guess you could expect that much, some of her half siblings are even pickier eaters for whom moving beyond chicken and ground beef is a major deal. I get having preferences but growing up, my parents would give me a stern talking to about refusing to eat what was served when I was a guest at someone else's house or when not paying the bill for a meal. I learned that is so ingrained in me, that it irks me to this day.
All in all the morning/early afternoon went swimmingly. Despite the fact my mother curses like a sailor, and regularly sends out mass texts saying, "Happy Fucking Friday," she is not incapable of being a good host and making people feel welcome in her house. I am sure my siblings had some giggling, but my brother's now wife and sister with her Fiance from rural Wisconsin have their own in law nuances that we are not supposed to swear in front of or discuss various jokes/stories of how we mess with the more religious members of our own family. When you have an aunt that pulled surprise Masses on people on the 4th of July, or an uncle who is married to a priest, you learn to have a good sense of humor about these things but it doesn't always make for polite conversation. I can honestly say I am not so nervous for the next time around.
Thanks for the read TL.
