All in the family

We had a serious family weekend here in NYC, including Rob's sister, her husband, their two kids, and 3 other families that they were traveling with. On Thursday night, when Rob was conveniently on a "business trip" to California, I met up with the whole gang for dinner. I had, in what I thought was hyperbole, told a friend I was having dinner that night with 15 people. It was, in fact, 20. And that is no exaggeration. There were 11 adults and 9 children. I honestly didn't know there were places in New York that could fit that kind of crowd. But there are and, in case you're curious, they're all in Times Square. Where relaxation goes to die.

Rob returned on Friday and after a smaller dinner (a mere 7 people), we brought his niece and nephew (ages 14 and 13) back to our place for a sleepover. They were both falling asleep around 12:15am during an episode of Heroes, but as soon as I turned the TV off and sent them to bed, they somehow discovered their second (or fifteenth?) winds and for the next half hour we listened to their hysterical giggles, screeches of "Jade just sharted!" and calls for "Uncle Robbie" to come and mediate their disputes.

Jade and Grant are unusually tall kids. At 14, Jade is 5'11". Grant is 6 feet. I so love to take pictures with them. Jade says they look like monsters next to me, but I think they are tall and beautiful and I am just the undersized human hovering near their armpits.

The funny thing about their height, though, is that it makes people treat them as though they are much older than they are. Jade got a caricature drawn of her on the street while she was here and the guy drew her in a small, tight, short black dress with huge boobs and her hand on her ass. The kid wears braces. Hello. Get her hand off her ass and put a t-shirt on her (which, incidentally, is what she was actually wearing.)

Today at lunch Jade asked why New York is called the Big Apple. Rob said he thought it had something to do with a brothel run by a woman named Eve. The kids both looked kind of confused, so I asked it they knew what a brothel was.

"Um, like a fight?" Jade asked.

"I think it's a meeting," said Grant.

Their dad turned to Rob. "Go ahead, Uncle Robbie. Explain this one."

Rob fumbled around, describing what a Madame did, before finally using the word "whorehouse." It was a bonding moment, I think.

If you wouldn't eat it, don't put it on your face?

As someone who switches between makeup brands, hair products, face cleaners, and lotions depending on my mood and what store is closest, I was very happy to learn about Environmental Working Group's SKIN DEEP Cosmetic Safety Database. It measures tons of different products/brands based on the level of toxicity, 0 being the least toxic and 10 being cancer in a bottle. And let me just say, the products I normally use were not that close to the 0 mark.

Scary.

Later, the box caved in

I don't even really know what this is that Emma is sitting on. I think it might be bike-oriented.

Does anyone have a cough drop?

I've been sick for a week. Not sick enough to skip work, or to sleep all day on the weekend, but sick enough that I can't remember what it feels like to not have a cough.

It started with a sore throat and now it just feels like golf ball-sized chunks of concrete are stuck in my lungs and every so often they release pieces of dust that float up my throat and make me hack in a way that causes others to look around thinking "Someone help that old man. He is clearly dying."

And instead of staying in and concentrating on breathing normally, I drove up to Cooperstown, New York, home to The Baseball Hall of Fame, to watch Rob's nephew play in a Little League tournament. We saw a home run derby, one game, and the Hall of Fame itself before heading back to the city. We also played a rousing game of Spoons with 11 people and that alone probably extended my recovery time by several days. I am not exaggerating when I say that people ended up in piles on the floor on top of each other, on the table (Rob's 6'5" brother in law), missing skin, and bleeding. Spoons. A family game. We laughed until we cried. It did not help my cough.

On the way home yesterday, I finally just succumbed to it and coughed for about 2 hours straight. I draped myself over the passenger seat, facing the back of the car and asked Rob to hit me on the back just to try to dislodge one of the concrete chunks. It didn't work, but I think it might have been entertaining for the people driving by.

At one point I announced that I felt like I had that disease, you know that one, where you cough up loads of junk and people have to help you by pounding on your back and basically it's awful and it's extra awful that I was actually comparing my cough to that disease.

"Oh, I know what you're talking about," said Rob. "Boomer Esiason's son had that."

And then I stopped coughing for a minute while we tried to remember what it was called. And when that failed, we busted out the IPhone and I Googled "Boomer Esiason son" and the Wikipedia page told me that the disease I was thinking of is a really terrible one and it's called Cystic Fibrosis.

And I know--I know--I'm going to hell for making that particular comparison, but isn't technology impressive?

Joe's Card Game

First person to adapt this into a drinking game wins a prize.

Take a normal deck of cards for two to four players. Take turns
picking cards and try to place in front of you a run of cards from 1 -
10.
1. On a given turn, you can only put down a card if it is one of the
three lowest you still need. So, on your first turn, you would only
be able to keep an ace, 2, or 3.
2. Cards you can't use are put in a discard pile.
3. If you pick a jack, you keep it, and on subsequent turns you may
keep a card if it is one of the FOUR lowest you need.
4. If you pick a queen, you may remove an opponent's jack.
5. If you pick a king, you may remove one of an opponent's cards.
6. Queens and kings cannot be saved, but must be used immediately.
7. After going through the deck, shuffle the discard pile and continue.
8. Winner is the first to complete a run of 1 - 10.

There is no need to not have answers

Rob is watching the Tour de France. Again. This particular sporting event has graced our television every night for the past 17 days. It's funny how 17 days can seem so much like 37 years. Seriously, how long is this race? I feel like I will slowly grow old while emaciated men in spandex climb up mountains and occasionally get ejected for drug use. The scenery is nice.

Anyway, I got home from an author event tonight and sat on the couch next to Rob, who was paying rapt attention to the Tour and eating Thai chicken puffs, which are basically fried balls of curried meat.

He cleared his throat and I glanced over at him.

"Not that you care," he began, "but this is the hardest day of the Tour de France since World War II."

"They had the Tour de France during World War II?" This I would find interesting.

"No," he said. "I don't know...I'm just saying...it's a really hard day."

I made an impressed face and then looked up the Tour on Wikipedia (Source of All Truths). It turns out that since 1903 there have been 94 completed Tours de France. In 1939 Spain, Italy and Germany bowed out of the race due to the political unrest in Europe. The whole Tour was then canceled from 1940-1946, beginning once again in 1947.

"Eat your chicken puff," said Rob.

So many beds, so little sleep

I had a better post planned for today. But that was before I got 3 hours of actual sleep all weekend and I am now just trying to calmly make it through the day, hyped up on caffeine and office urgency. What I’d really like to do is crawl around on the floor and toss things at other things.

Rob and I went to the Hamptons on Friday to see our friends and their beautiful new house. It sleeps something like 135, so that’s how many people they invited. It was a great crowd and we grilled, hung out by the pool, drank lots of wine and played card games. The catch was, we had to share a room. With a snorer. And at 4am on Saturday night, after at least 2 hours of trying to get my pillow all the way into my ears, I decided I could handle it no longer. So I slept in the car. I would have passed out on a couch somewhere, but half the house was still awake and drinking and I was at the point of panic—how will I ever make it through the beginning of the week if I start out with this kind of sleep deficit?

And though I was glad I had the option of car camping, I’m not going to pretend it was overly comfortable. At 9am, after waking up every hour to adjust, I went out to the backyard and passed out on a lawn chair until people started coming out to stare at me. At that point I breezed into the kitchen and got some coffee, like it was totally normal to be passed out and covered in dew when everyone else was getting out of their real beds.