It has always been the big family joke that The Father loves his car first, the football team Ajax next, his work,and then- somewhere in between we, his family fall in there,somewhere.

This has always been a hardy- har sortof thing.

Recently, it looks like he has a very good chance of providing Ikea with work wear in the US.

Now, Daddy ’s cousin, who we call Uncle, is smack in the the middle of the States- Ohio, and Uncle is a hustler of the first degree.

We tried and tried to get in contact with Uncle- I even called his son and I loathe telephones. No reaction.

Finally , I asked Daddy about it, and he told me that he had told Uncle to in no way get involved with business with The Father.

I was- looking back- stupid enough to tell The Father that Daddy had nixed the the idea, that he told Uncle not even to get involved with anything to do with The Father.

It resulted in the first time that I have ever seen The Father break down. He has always adored Daddy, and it always seemed that the feeling was mutual.

The evening that I told The Father what Daddy had said, The Father wanted to sell his car, for us to move to a row house, to just give it all up.

We were up until 3 in the morning. I told him to fire me from my job, but that I would still do the work. I am qualified to do contract archeology, I could try and find a part time job outside of the house. I have never, ever seen him in such despair. And I have known him since 1980.

In the end, I do not think that we will see Uncle again,not after what Daddy has told him.

And Daddy ? He has one health problem after another. I suppose that I will always forgive Daddy.

But will The Father ?

I think not.

And I wonder if I will see Daddy again.

I tend to think that I will not.

My computer died a few weeks ago, and I am now working on The Father’s dino of a lap top.

Today, I managed to get a password that would enable me to post here. Uh, everyone will note that I most likely do not have spelll check and will often cringe in horror. Imagine that, I went to Smith and still cannot spell for sh*t.

It seems that there might be two urls for this site. Here is the correct one:

http://akitcheninbrabant.com/burp/

There has been so much that I have wanted to post, but was unable to.

I suppose that Obama is the biggest news.

As we did not go to America last Summer, I was unable to buy those little comfy posters that I had for Kerry, but had to pay 70 $ for a poster to hang in our window.

Oh well, the euro/ $ rate did not make that really too expensive. It is one of those posters made by some *artist*. I saved the tube that it came in, as if all went well, I supposed it might some day become a collectors item, having collected posters for many years.

The people that I meet in town had all seen the poster and knew that I had voted for him ( although, voting from Mass. one always knows that the Democrats will win and that there is always the question of whether or not absentee ballots are actually *counted*)

The people that I have spoken to in town have congradulated me and expressed their pleasure at his win.

Oddly enough, I usually listen to BBC1 as I do my domestic chores. The whole focus was on the fact that he is black. Actually, I favored Clinton, but mostly, I wanted a Democrat in office.

Perhaps it is because of the way I was raised, an Army brat. For me, Americans can have blue eyes, brown hair, have freckles or have brown skin- everyone is diferent, so what.

And once I started working, as a contract Archaeologist, in Boston,( Roxbury, much to my Dad’s horror) I learned that assh*les come in every color.

Much more, like I am being * fired * from my job at the company, The Girl going on *The Pill*, and that a 14 month red tape delay from India is going to leave us having to watch every penny for the next 6 months…uh, Christmas , which we host for The Father’s whole family.

So, what are they going to name the puppy ?

My in-laws always have a three course meal- soup, the main course, and then desert.

The soup is usually made oh, sometime during the weekend, and basically reheated every day for that week.

Our gift for our 25th anniversary was a pot of chicken soup that had been re-heated so often it looked like green slug.

But, then, of course, it is simply the thought that counts, isn’t it ?

The Girl wants us to have our hair done * together*.

I must confess, my hair looks like The Bride Of Frankenstein, but much well less coiffed.

MY only *no* is that I do not want to walk out of the beauty parlour with short, curly, blue hair.

She agrees.

We shall see.

Today I received a shot of cortisone in my buttocks.

I have been crying since that moment, reminds one very much of being pregnant.

The Baby took off for camp today…4 days.

She has never been away from home, sans siblings,

Do I fuss and worry.

What do you think ?

As per agreement, Penny and Kevin left the evening of September 3.

All things considered, it went pretty well, except I was rather shocked at how much food 4 teenagers consume.

I really came to like Kevin very much indeed, a sweet, polite young man.

Enough said.

But it is nice to just be back in our little private nest once more.

So, today I take The Baby to the DR. She has some sort of persistent urinary tract infection. Not The Dr., The Baby.

I explain carefully to The Baby what will happen. What I did not know was that there was going to be a spread your legs exam.

On the plus side, it was a woman GP. On the negative side, Baby went bird shit.

So bird shit, in fact, that the Dr., in all of her wisdom, suspects…oh, come on, take a wild guess, won’t you.

Baby is fine now, I pick up the antibiotics in a few hours.

Now, once more, take a wild guess : how is Mommy Dearest here doing ?

Is she seeing all of these red flags appearing in some file of a rather Germanic bureaucratic nature ?

Or is she simply being her usual mountain out of a mole hill sort of person ?

I actually have 2,672 posts here.There are many, many things that I would like Google to find and many more that I would rather remained , oh, obscure.

Let’s see, if I edited 10 posts a day, how long would that take ? I am even too lazy to figure that out.

So, I’ll just add that to the list of a zillion things to do, and who knows.

Miracles do happen after all.