I'm beginning to have mixed feelings about these annual family picnics, and I'm honestly starting to wonder how much longer I will bother continuing to go. Yesterday there was a moment when I looked around and thought to myself, How many people here are that important to me, really? The ones who are -- Dad and Sherri, for example -- I already see regularly in other contexts. Toni Marie and James are cool, but even those two I see pretty regularly at family holidays already.

Now, to be fair, the answer to that question does vary depending on the year. There was just something about this year that was particularly needling to me. Last year, for instance, Auntie Rose, Uncle Imre and even Valerie made it, and I see all of them -- particularly Valerie -- so seldom that their presence alone made it worth coming. And I had no idea how many people would show up this year; Untie Rose did not, as she is, as Sherri put it yesterday, "Failing fast," and I'm even beginning to wonder if she'll make it to my Birth Week next year when I plan to come back to Port Townsend and go to Fort Worden with her. Valerie texted me on Saturday inviting me to a late birthday party for both Auntie Rose and Uncle Imre on August 25 but Shobhit and I will be in Denver that day. She then suggested we "can do an alternate date just to connect," and I had misinterpreted that as suggesting she might reschedule the party, but that's clearly not what she meant -- I think I accidentally put Aunt Penny into a mild panic for a minute (although it sounded like it wasn't over much more than scheduling a dog sitter, and you know what? give me a break). I re-read the texts this morning and Valerie was just suggesting we go visit Auntie Rose in Port Townsend ourselves the following weekend. "Mom is not doing well at the moment," she wrote. "She's now walking with a walker."

Anyway. Valerie wasn't there this year either -- and she had been last year, even using her nice camera to get a wonderful group photo. We did not manage to get a shot of everyone present this year, or every family member this year, but the shot above does include 27 of the 33 people I know to have been present, so that's not bad. And as it happens, although neither Jennifer nor I expected a lot of people to show up this year -- because her Facebook Invite only yielded nine RSVPs, but it turned out a lot of word of mouth still spread otherwise -- there was actually one more present this year than last! Last year included 32, and this year there were 33. And here is this year's list, which this time I have written in order or arrival:

1. Matthew
2. Jennifer *
3. Matthew (Jennifer's boyfriend)
4. Hope *
5. Chase *
6. Ian *
7. Tammy *
8. Erin *
9. Aunt Penny *
10. Dad *
11. Sherri *
12. Les *
13. James *
14. Kylar *
15. Toni Marie *
16. Hayden *
17. Emma (Hayden’s girlfriend)
18. Roy (Hayden’s friend)
19. Thayer *
20. Kellan (Jame's nephew)
21. Howard (family friend of Aunt Raenae's and Dad and Sherri's)
22. Sharon (family friend of Aunt Raenae's and Dad and Sherri's)
23. Caden (Howard and Sharon's grandson)
24. Madison (Howard and Sharon's granddaughter)
25. Uncle Garth *
26. Gloria *
27. Uncle Paul *
28. Sarah *
29. Braxton *
30. Braxton’s caregiver
31. Sarita *
32. Aunt Raenae *
33. Aunt Arliss *

The asterisked names are family by either blood or by marriage; exactly how they are related varies from parents to aunts and uncles to at least one great aunt and in some cases first cousins once removed . . . if you're seriously interested in sussing that out, you can refer to this family tree updated in 2016 for the Scattering of the Ashes of Grandma and Grandpa McQuilkin. (Note: one of Toni and James's kids is mis-named on that chart; it is Kylar, not Skylar.)

So. There had been 62 people present for the scattering of the ashes in 2016, by far the most at one time since Grandma's memorial service in 2011, which is of course expected and appropriate; we had another day of a picnic the very next day, and that is really much more the start of these annual picnics at Mason Lake; at that there were eighteen. Thus, this year's total of 33 was down 7 from last year's record high of 40; and 2017 had 32 family members alone; I can't find an official count of the total present. So, now that I think about it, this year was still a bit of a downturn, if surprisingly high; narrowing it to family members alone, there were 18 at the Mason Lake picnic in 2016; 32 in 2017; 32 in 2018; and 24 in 2019.

Anyway! The key difference this year was the presence of Uncle Garth and Aunt Gloria, in from Wyoming. I had no idea they had been staying with Dad and Sherri since last Tuesday. Apparently Uncle Garth had told Jennifer some time ago to let him know when she would be scheduling another one of these family picnics as he would like to return for it, and she did, but Jennifer herself never got any confirmation they were coming -- only a "maybe" from Gloria on the Facebook invite. She literally found out they were coming yesterday itself. But, their presence was declared by a few people to be the one reason Aunt Penny came down from Granite Falls (or maybe Everett or wherever the hell she lives now), and Uncle Garth being there this year is probably a big reason as many people came this year as they did -- without him, the numbers likely would have been much smaller. Jennifer even said his expressed interest in coming was the only reason she went ahead and reserved the kitchen for this event again this year, as otherwise she may have skipped it given all the drama between her and Eric splitting up in the past several months. This year's event almost came together on a fluke. Ten family members who made it last year did not make it this year (my great Uncle Lynn and three of his descendants; my great Uncle Miles's daughter -- Dad's cousin -- Farrell; Miles's stepson Rick; Eric; Auntie Rose, Uncle Imre and Valerie) so still getting up to 24 family members with a slightly different mix (adding Uncle Garth and Gloria) this year was pretty good. And! It meant that all four of Dad's siblings were with him together for the first time, I believe, since the scattering of the ashes in 2016.

So let's get into the individuals with dubious mental clarity, shall we? I'll start small. Ish. Strangely, the context of all these examples is the apparel people chose to wear to this event.

Uncle Garth. Check out this dumb as shit T-shirt:

IF GUNS KILL PEOPLE
I guess PENCILS misspell words,
CARS drive drunk & SPOONS
make people fat.

Leave it to conservatives to reply on talking points based on false premises. Now, just to be fair, bear in mind Uncle Paul and Gloria live in Wyoming, the least densely populated state outside Alaska and literally the least populated state in the country overall -- fewer people live in the entire state than do inside the city limits of Seattle. They live in a different world, with a very rural, rugged lifestyle; they smoke like chimneys and have no care for judgments of their health or lifestyle choices. And I actually get that. But! The idea that gun control advocates are angling to confiscate the guns that actually make sense in the context of their lifestyle is objectively preposterous, a bullshit lie fed to them by the Right. Banning things like bump stocks or assault rifles, or enforcing background checks or passing "red flag" laws such as denying perpetrators of domestic violence the right to own guns. would literally have no impact on their way of life whatsoever.

These are simply direct attempts at mitigating the ease by which people can use guns to kill people. The only way that T-shirt would make any sense is if there were actually pencils manufactured to make it easier to misspell words, or cars made to make it easier to drive drunk, or spoons made to make it easer to get fat. And not one of those things has been made. Also, none of those things are specifically designed for killing to begin with, and although cars can be used in massively dangerous ways, guess what? That's fucking why they are slapped with countless government regulations! Far more than guns are. WHICH. IS. INSANE.

Nobody said anything to Uncle Garth about his T-shirt, least of all me. It's just another example, of many, in my family of an objective failure of critical thinking.

And by the way? That T-shirt was still far more easily overlooked than Sarah showing up in her fucking red KEEP AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hat. She said hi to me as I passed by her and it took me a second even to believe she had the balls to do that. True, this is Sarah we're talking about, a lady so nutso she makes who otherwise might be the weirdest person in our family look like they're from Leave it to Beaver. Nevertheless, this woman is a lot like President Fuckwit himself in that she can still astonish us by the new lows she can reach. And you know what? She would literally love that comparison!

I actively avoided her for the rest of the day. It literally made me sick. As far as I'm concerned, even though it would be a stretch -- albeit only barely -- to say she might as well have shown up with a swastika on her arm, I would still say she might as well have shown up wearing a hat that said THAT'S RIGHT I'M RACIST. And do you how what is the biggest reason she can get away with that shit? Because our family is so, so white. I'm sure many people in my family might read that and get really defensive about it, but I'm telling you it's the truth. There was not one nonwhite person present at yesterday's picnic, and had Shobhit shown up -- as he does, sometimes; just not this year -- he would have been the only one. And I'm sure he would have tolerated Sarah's bullshit, but frankly, he shouldn't have to. If Shobhit wants to avoid my family reunions from now on, I won't blame him. We're talking about a woman who wears a fucking MAGA hat who is married to my uncle who is fine using the N-word on Facebook -- one of many reasons I am no longer Facebook friends with him.

I realize many would be well within their rights to challenge me for not saying anything to her about the hat. Does that not at least on some level make me complicit in letting her get away with it? My only defense is this: I have known this woman for many years now, and I know her established attitudes and behaviors pretty well. She is fully aware of how I feel about it -- probably why she quietly unfriendly me on Facebook a while back herself. It says a lot about her, as well as my entire family, that she came yesterday in that hat and actually said to Jennifer, "This is probably the only place I can wear this" -- knowing full well that I would be there. Jennifer basically just rolled her eyes and said "Okay," apparently. Jennifer has no power to change Sarah's behavior either; Jennifer was never Sarah's biggest fan; and she's married to her dad. As bonkers as even Uncle Paul himself is, I would never expect Jennifer to ban her own parents from these functions, even over this.

Nevertheless, Sarah wearing that hat was a provocation. She wanted to walk around acting like it wasn't, or like she just didn't believe it was, but it was, and she knows it. The choice I made was not to take the bait -- which was absolutely what it was. Sherri at one point asked me if I saw the hat Sarah was wearing, and I said, "Yes, I was just thinking about that. I was choosing not to say anything about it." Sherri said, "Well, you're talking about it now." But, I did not pursue it any further. I just made it a point of keeping a wide berth around that woman. I almost just called her vile, and decided against it. "Vile" might still be too strong, even for her. Showing up in that hat, the action itself, was vile. Sarah herself? She's just a willful dipshit.

And that then leaves the question: Why keep coming back to hang around these willful dipshits? I mean, seriously? Honestly, by and large, as I said, it's basically worth that cost when the gathering includes people I enjoy and respect but seldom get to see otherwise -- and there were not that many such people this time. Instead, I find myself hanging around people with no qualms about supporting a social structure that denies the humanity of marginalized communities -- including mine!

At least Toni Marie and James and their kids are fun. (Jennifer's kids are pretty fun too, for the record.) Kylar offered me this delightful pose just outside the large shelter and kitchen area. Also, I never got a good shot of it, but Toni Marie was wearing what I would consider the best "statement apparrel" of the day -- a T-shirt that said in huge letters, "FUCK CANCER," except with a sideways cancer ribbon standing in for thge C and K in FUCK. Actually you can see it pretty well in this shot -- Toni is sitting at the picnic table in the foreground, somewhat facing the camera and sitting across from three of her kids. I can imagine someone being more openly offended by that than a MAGA hat, which is dumb as hell, and it was the only apparel I heard anyone say anything about. I did not hear the full conversation but I did hear Toni say at one point, "You've seen this shirt before." Probably to her mother.

Time will tell whether this "Family & Friends" picnic will happen again next year. I will probably come if it does, but right now I am of the mind that it will be me giving it once last chance. And if I have to tolerate the same kind of dipshittery again, then I think I'll be done. I love family and I love spending time at family gatherings, but a lot of these extended family members are becoming less and less worth the price of admission. They truly aren't that important to me. Hell, perhaps we should start trying family gatherings limited just to Dad and Sherri's descendants alone -- although they are a bit more scattered geographically, it's certainly gotten big enough. It may become a bit more realistic an idea once Brandi and Nick move back to the Pacific Northwest, as some posts on Facebook indicate a possibility of them moving to the Portland, Oregon area. And moving the focus on a family reunion, or family picnic, in that way would feel appropriate.

I've even moved into a place where things between Jennifer and me have gotten a bit complicated, only because a few new things got out on Saturday night that we probably should never have discussed. Her contempt for Hillary Clinton at all costs is mind boggling to me (and it should be noted that this does not lump her only in with conservatives; this is a widespread opinion among those on the far left as well), and we basically made a mistake in discussing it a little too much, I think. She tends to get defensive about it, and she even kind of threw a couple of other family members under the bus in the process, only to message me super early Sunday morning with a clarification that she basically realized she was remembering a conversation wrong. And to her credit, otherwise she tends to have the good sense to keep her mouth shut about politics. It's been a delicate line we've been walking ever since the 2016 election, and in both our cases it's because we've been too close for too long, all our lives, and neither of us wants to cross a line we can't take back and then lose each other for good. And right now we're in a place where that could happen very easily, with both of us making real effort to prevent it from happening.

And here we get back to a key difference between Jennifer and, say, Sarah. Jennifer would never in a million years show up to a family picnic wearing a fucking MAGA hat -- and not just because she never wears hats anyway. She would never be dumb enough to use a clear political statement as a provocation that just wasn't being verbalized but was still being made very clear. She comes to these things like a sane, sensible person, neutral and with no interest in bringing any kind of politics into the conversation.

And, sure, I suppose that, given my own history, some family members might think a lot of what I'm saying is pretty rich given my own history of outspokenness and self-righteousness, but I would argue that comparison gets back into the realm of false equivalence. The only way anything I have ever said or done could even remotely compared to Sarah's MAGA hate would be if I had shown up with a T-shirt that was pointedly insulting to conservatives. A T-shirt that reads, "GROW YOUR OWN DOPE. PLANT A REPUBLICAN, for instance. I actually feel pretty strongly that's not even half as bad as wearing a MAGA hat, and still -- can you imagine me showing up at a family picnic in that shirt? Even though I did find it funny when I found it online just now? Funny or not, it would be a boneheaded and completely unnecessary provocation in that context.

Now, a brief aside: it took me a minute even to find an even remotely equivalent T-shirt insulting to conservatives. I Googled "dumb leftist t-shirts," thinking I might find leftist T-shirts that were dumb, and instead found a bevy of links to T-shirts about leftists being stupid. I guess I should have known better. Okay, so how about when I google "dumb conservative t-shirts"? First link: "shop anti-democrat T-shirts online." Jesus Christ. No matter how you phrase it, Google just finds T-shirts for conservatives to insult liberals. That says a lot. You have to go down several links in the results to find T-shirts for liberals who think conservatives are stupid -- they do exist, of course, but are clearly not as popular.

Anyway. Sherri really likes to sit at a table at these functions and declare "This is Switzerland" -- as in, politically neutral -- and she did again this year. It's useful and I appreciate it, although I keep wondering how it would have gone down if I were sitting at said table and Sarah came over with her MAGA hat. Because that hat is by definition not politically neutral. I don't think Sarah ever did sit at any table that had been declared to be "Switzerland," although I really don't think it's because she knew better. In all likelihood she was just clueless to it.

There was an older couple sitting at that table for a while who I did not really know, but actually seemed quite nice -- Sharon and Howard, who are apparently "family friends." Sharon explained to me that her daughter and Aunt Raenae's daughter (Toni Marie) were friends as teenagers, and Sharon and Aunt Raenae were thus also friends, as well as Dad and Sherri I guess. Apparently Sharon had been to one of our Easter dinners at Dad and Sherri's many years ago -- "I met you once, about twenty years ago," she said. Of course I didn't remember her at all; if she had been at an Easter dinner two years ago I would not remember her.

Holy shit! Actually it wasn't 20 years ago, but it was well over a decade ago, and I must have seen her more than once around that time -- I actually just found a photo of Sharon with Aunt Raenae at Halloween in 2005. So, that was 14 years ago. This would mean Sharon has even met Shobhit before; she asked -- as did many people -- where Shobhit was yesterday, and I consistently had to tell them he was working. Anyway, part of my caption on that photo said, "they all come to a lot of our family's holiday gatherings anymore." Sharon had a much different haircut then, and I would never have recognized her without the caption mentioning her name -- which made me look closer and I can absolutely see the familiarity of her face, if not her hair. Frankly her hairdo right now is way better. (Good thing; if her hairdo was way better 14 years ago I would just have to not mention it.) Anyway, I found her to be very nice and friendly and visiting with her a bit was very pleasant.

She and her husband Howard were here this time with two grandchildren, who at the time of that 2005 Halloween were likely not quite even born yet. It astonishes me sometimes when I contextualize the passage of that much time. If Shobhit's and my relationship were a person, that person would be in high school right now. Whaaaat!

And, given all the time I have spent in this post kind of shitting on this year's Family & Friends Picnic, I should clarify that I did still have a good time, and I'm glad I went. I do particularly like that Mason Lake Recreation Area, which Jennifer and I and many other cousins went to many times on family camping trips as kids. I have a real nostalgia for that place, and since I stayed the night with Jennifer, she and I left for Mason Lake at the same time, but she had to stop at Wal-Mart and I went straight there -- my GPS once again taking me to the wrong spot, but at least it's now familiar enough to me that I did not overshoot by too far and I quickly found my way back to the correct entrance -- so I was the first to arrive, and I was there alone for maybe ten minutes. The first picture I took, of the empty large shelter and kitchen Jennifer had reserved, was taken at 9:25 a.m. The campground itself was barely awake, no one was swimming, and the lake was undisturbed. It was very pleasant and brought back comforting childhood memories.

That's kind of why I don't want to keep coming back with idiot adult family members creating soiled memories that are more recent, thereby pushing out the nicer childhood ones.

And to be fair, most of the extended family I really don't have all that big a problem with, and it's too bad just a couple of them have to kind of ruin things for me. Am I just "allowing" them to ruin things? Well, something like Uncle Garth's moronic T-shirt is one thing. Honestly even that qualifies as a provocation, but it's easier to ignore. Any time Uncle Paul and Sarah are around it's a lot harder to ignore. The MAGA hat is in its own category and is deeply offensive to me. But, I haven't even mentioned Braxton, the sort-of-grown developmentally disabled kid they still take care of -- ostensibly, anyway; Braxton has a caregiver who usually comes along anymore but really does little to reign him in, and Braxton has a reputation now of sticking his gross, unwashed hands into the food. Now, granted, I did not actually see him do that this year, and he was even far less disruptive than usual. I only saw him bouncing around and moaning like a deaf cow just once. I did have the added delight of discovering many hours later that this photo of Dad looking like Popeye while barbequing the burgers (I say that with love!) also includes Braxton's very clearly visible butt crack in the background.

The point remains this, though: most of the extended family I don't really have a problem with, I am neither going to miss terribly if these gatherings stop happening. The vast majority of them I feel pretty indifferent to anymore, so the emotion ranges from indifference to bewilderment to disgust. The ones I remain overtly fond of, I still manage to see regularly outside these events -- at least based on the attendance this year, anyway. That, specifically, is why I am asking myself the question of whether I need to keep coming to them.

It was kind of interesting to see Jennifer's new boyfriend Matthew at the picnic, instead of Eric, for the first time. I think he felt a little like an awkward outsider, and he did not interact a lot with family outside of Jennifer and her kids. Jennifer would occasionally talk to him about how weird certain members of our family are. I had gone to chat with Sherri at one point when she was off away from everyone smoking a cigarette ("Suckin' on a cancer stick?" I asked; "Did you come over here just to ask me that?" she replied), and Jennifer joined us. When Matthew wandered over to us a few minutes later, I said, "We're ranking the crazies in our family," I told him. That was literally true, actually.

I will say that one thing that made it worth going this year was the nice surprise of all of Dad's siblings being together at once, which only happens once every several years. I had decided I wanted to leave early enough to try and pick Shobhit up when he got off work at 5:30, and I was afraid I would not manage to get them all together for a photo because so much time was spent trying to help Uncle Garth after he locked his keys in his car, which was amusing but also time-consuming. Garth finally got a hold of his insurance company, I think, and with just a few minutes to spare, I got them all to gather at a picnic table for some pictures -- which tons of people took, so I certainly wasn't the only one who got any use out of it. I even took photos with both Uncle Paul's and Uncle Garth's cameras, the latter being stuck in a zoom so close up I had to back up all the way back inside the shelter and stand on one of the picnic tables just so I could fit them all into the frame.

They all sat in reverse-chronological order of their birth year: Dad (1955), Aunt Penny (1953), Uncle Garth (1952), Uncle Paul (1950) and Aunt Raenae (1948). I even got a brief video clip in the midst of this photo shoot. (Incidentally, you can find the full photo album on Flickr here.)

Once all that was done, I headed to the car, and might have gone right out of there but then Jennifer showed up at my window and said Sherri had asked if we had gotten our annual selfie together at the end of the pier in the lake. We had not, and I've gotten a selfie with her every other year so far, so I went ahead and got out of the car to rush out onto the pier with her and get this year's shot before rushing back to the car, as Jennifer called out, "Tell Shobhit I said hi!"

And then I set out on the two-hour drive back home, the quickest drive from Mason Lake being via the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, where, guess what? I was so focused on following the GPS directions, which were telling me to stay in the left three lanes on the approach to the bridge, I had no choice but to pass right by the toll booths without paying! I tried for a split second to get over to the right in time, but I was just too far ahead and there was too much other traffic. God damn it. I just waited on hold with the Good2Go people for more than half an hour just to be told I need to call back in a week to try to pay the toll by phone, as it takes that long for it even to show up in their billing system.

GPS kind of fucked me over once I was in Seattle as well. At first it was helpful, as it comes up with notices of alternate routes that will save me five minutes here or there. One of them said "via 15th avenue" and I clicked that, thinking nothing of it because Total Wine & More is off of 15th Avenue West. It had me get off the freeway in south Seattle and go up Airport Way South, which I don't think I had ever driven so much of, and the road barely had any other traffic on it -- actually pretty useful. But then the GPS had me turning over toward Rainier Avenue, no part of which goes anywhere near Interbay, so I was a baffled. I finally zoomed out on the map and saw it was taking me home rather than to Total Wine -- even though I had initially done directions to Total Wine. What the hell? Maybe it got switched somehow while having to reconfigure out in the boonies by Mason Lake where service is spotty, I don't know.

In any case, I then had to backtrack and drive through downtown, and while I otherwise would have arrived right at 5:30 when Shobhit got off work, this tacked another 10 minutes to the time it was to take me to get there. I actually texted him twice along the way not to catch a bus, but he must not have checked his texts, because when I arrived he was walking along the sidewalk about a block away from Total Wine. I called his name out my window and honked, and he stopped so I could turn around and let him in the car.

Neither of us ever talked about the last text he had sent me, on Saturday night. It was very annoying and I had chosen just to ignore it, which was clearly the best course of action. I had hoped to meet up with Gina for a tour of the Olympia Police Department, and she wound up unavailable and having forgotten she said she would do that -- I drove to Shelton to stay the night with Jennifer as planned anyway. So he texted me back, So there was no point going today, and then On my one day off. I'm not gonna ask for Christmas off. I get so sick of this petulant-child behavior, even though there's little chance he'll actually follow up on that threat (and if he does, so be it; I'll make my way to Olympia on Christmas Eve on my own if I have to, and he can stay back and make time and a half). Never mind the fact that this is not the only day off he's had -- it's rare, sure, but it does happen. Also, day off or not, I see Jennifer maybe four times a year on average; I see Shobhit nearly every day. The fact that we don't spend all day every day together doesn't change that, and it was a dick move for him to text me that. And it continued to annoy me for hours afterward, but I still chose not to take that bait and I ignored it. And it never came up again.

I think he was pretty happy I made it back in time to pick him up anyway, so he wouldn't have to take the bus. I guess he was already planning just to walk down the street for a tasting at the Batch 206 Distillery, and so he had me just drive us down there. We shared a $7 flight of four 0.5oz shots, the only one I liked being the only one he did not like at all (the mint vodka, which I had once a few years back when I went on a distillery tasting tour with Gabriel and Kornelija). The one he liked most, the moonshine, he wound up buying two small bottles of -- thereby waiving the $7 tasting fee.

We then went home and he made us very tasty grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, which I really should not have eaten after all I ate this weekend -- I was back up past 157 lbs this morning, which is not good at all -- but, I won't regret eating it. It was so good! They even had tomatoes on them taken from the tomato plant he's growing out on the balcony. Otherwise I finished editing and uploading (but not captioning) the day's photos -- 38 photos and videos as compared to just 33 shots last year -- and then Shobhit was in bed by about 8:30 both due to being actually tired and needing to get up by like 3:30 this morning to get to work for inventory today. I was in bed myself about ninety minutes later.

[posted 12:24 pm]