Weekends and family

Photo: Reuters.com

Without a job to organize my week, I've been a little confused about what day it is. I believe this is Monday, which means I had a really great weekend, since that would make yesterday Sunday and the day before that Saturday. Brilliant reasoning, I know.

Family is what made the weekend special. My dad came in from Colorado and my aunt and uncle from Kansas to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bethany Schools. Mom hosted about 30 ladies at her house for a reunion luncheon. They were all so cute! And noisy!!! Put 30 women in a room, some who haven't seen each other for 50 years, and the noise level rivals a stadium full of vuvuzelas.

I have that word - vuvuzela - stuck in my head. There is something about it that just rolls off the tongue. Kind of like Bafana Bafana, South Africa's national football (soccer) team. Just hearing Bafana Bafana catapults me back to the year we lived in Johannesburg. While living there I never once, however, encountered a vuvuzela. Plenty of ululation, but no vuvuzelas. I love onomatopoetic words almost as much as I love a good palindrome.

Anyway, before I got distracted by "fun with words" I was talking about family. I'm grateful that we are continuing to gather in Oklahoma. Niece Cori is in town to interview for a job that would bring her into the circle of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents that are slowly assembling here. Her friends in Colorado purportedly can't understand why she would want to live in this state. After living many, many place, I can tell them why it's a good place to live. It's a good place to live because that's where family is. End of story.