What's The Buzz?

Maybe she really did have to pee. A 75 year old bladder can't be what it used to be.

Or maybe she felt she needed to take a deep breath after my good news before firing the cannon of bad news.

Or maybe she really did forget to mention something. Something that had been festering like so many other tidbits of woe she'd been squirreling away for a rainy day.

My rainy day had evidently arrived.

Her issue? My play dates. Yes, as if I were 5 years old.

Let me explain.

Estelle came from a huge family. She had three sisters. And seven brothers. I would have shot myself had I had more than one. Each sib had a bunch of kids eventually. That is where the relationship with the socioeconomic norms begins and ends.

They all grew up (miraculously). They had the normal beefs and hostilities and alliances and two-against-ones any family has. Only in greater volume.

And then the next generation was no different. Charlotte and Joe and I grew up flying by the seat of our collective pants and had kids and beefs and hostilities and two-against-ones. So Charlotte and I not speaking to Joe was certainly not an anomaly in our family. Many a feud had come and gone in the generations we knew of.

We were a big boisterous feuding family on the best of days but for many years saw each other on holidays and most Sundays. It made for some memorable arguments and some very laughable insults. But matters deteriorated when my grandmother passed away. There was no central force of nature willing us together. I don't think anyone took it as a license to defect. I think we all naturally slipped away from each other when the reigns that bound the family slipped from my grandmother's hands.

And years later, a bunch of cousins from my generation decided our kids were missing out on the gifts and blessings we had benefited from by having been born into a big, loud, raucous, hilarious high spirited family. And we decided to do something about it. Several somethings, actually.

We planned parties.
We hosted reunions.
We reached across boundaries to disenfranchised cousins.
We exchanged addresses.
We swapped phone numbers.
We friended each other on Facebook.
We got to know each other. And each other's partners. And each other's spouses. And each other's kids.

And quite naturally, some of the children of feuding siblings in the prior generation cross-pollinated and began to enjoy truly wonderful friendships. Again.

And this, apparently, was a bee that got stuck buzzing around in Estelle's tightly-drawn bonnet.

She was mad as a hornet. And the hornet had come looking for me.