waitingman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
waitingman) wrote2011-05-15 11:30 pm
waitingman) wrote2011-05-15 11:30 pm
Entry tags:
Bring The Family
An odd day...
But let's rewind to last night when my Long-Suffering Partner & I gatecrashed my Mother's Birthday dinner plans & invited ourselves along to a completely different restaurant than she'd planned. The Chinese place we selected turned out to be completely empty on a Saturday night, which would ordinarily ring an alarm bell or two, but the on-line reviews had mentioned its quietness, as well as the quirky nature of the service, but the food was meant to be good...
And it was, in a fairly standard 'Round-Eye' Chinese restaurant way ~ where the dishes don't get too adventurous, or overly traditional & stick to the established Western favourites. My L-SP surprised me by ordering Honey King Prawns... the roundest of Round-Eye Chinese dishes & they turned out to be quite good, not too sweet & cooked perfectly. My Father ordered half a duck in brown sauce & was reluctant to share it with anyone ~ the little of it I managed to try explained why... it was delicious!
And so to today ~ a family Christening in a Catholic church in the south-west of Sydney. The priest was about an hour late, so we were all gathered outside the church... waiting... My Uncle & I hatched a plan to break in, find some robes, uncork the Communion wine & perform the ceremony ourselves (I can read & recite Latin), dunk the kid in the font & then head to the after-party... but the priest turned up before we had the lock picked. Damn!
Towards the end of the after-party, my L-SP & I took the opportunity to discreetly present memorial books for my late Uncle to relevant family, as we don't see some of them very often, without drawing any attention to it so as to not change the focus of the day, but the mother of the newly baptised babe sprung me giving a book to her husband & made her displeasure vocally apparent... then was all smiles, hugs & cheek kisses when we were leaving a few minutes later. I understand her reaction to a point ~ a Christening was perhaps not the best time, but it was the only time in the near-to-middle future we would see some of them... & we'd been careful to not make a song & dance about it... or a formal presentation. The worst thing I can say is that I'd been hearing about trouble in the new family & had some of my suspicions confirmed by the interlude... Little things say a lot to me.
Still, it was nice to catch up with that side of the family, who are starting to spread out over two States, so a full turnout is hard to organise & therefore rare.
Back to work tomorrow for a quiet day...
But let's rewind to last night when my Long-Suffering Partner & I gatecrashed my Mother's Birthday dinner plans & invited ourselves along to a completely different restaurant than she'd planned. The Chinese place we selected turned out to be completely empty on a Saturday night, which would ordinarily ring an alarm bell or two, but the on-line reviews had mentioned its quietness, as well as the quirky nature of the service, but the food was meant to be good...
And it was, in a fairly standard 'Round-Eye' Chinese restaurant way ~ where the dishes don't get too adventurous, or overly traditional & stick to the established Western favourites. My L-SP surprised me by ordering Honey King Prawns... the roundest of Round-Eye Chinese dishes & they turned out to be quite good, not too sweet & cooked perfectly. My Father ordered half a duck in brown sauce & was reluctant to share it with anyone ~ the little of it I managed to try explained why... it was delicious!
And so to today ~ a family Christening in a Catholic church in the south-west of Sydney. The priest was about an hour late, so we were all gathered outside the church... waiting... My Uncle & I hatched a plan to break in, find some robes, uncork the Communion wine & perform the ceremony ourselves (I can read & recite Latin), dunk the kid in the font & then head to the after-party... but the priest turned up before we had the lock picked. Damn!
Towards the end of the after-party, my L-SP & I took the opportunity to discreetly present memorial books for my late Uncle to relevant family, as we don't see some of them very often, without drawing any attention to it so as to not change the focus of the day, but the mother of the newly baptised babe sprung me giving a book to her husband & made her displeasure vocally apparent... then was all smiles, hugs & cheek kisses when we were leaving a few minutes later. I understand her reaction to a point ~ a Christening was perhaps not the best time, but it was the only time in the near-to-middle future we would see some of them... & we'd been careful to not make a song & dance about it... or a formal presentation. The worst thing I can say is that I'd been hearing about trouble in the new family & had some of my suspicions confirmed by the interlude... Little things say a lot to me.
Still, it was nice to catch up with that side of the family, who are starting to spread out over two States, so a full turnout is hard to organise & therefore rare.
Back to work tomorrow for a quiet day...