Friday, February 11, 2005
reunited over a pot. twice.
Reunion Dinner is really a routine affair.
Year in and year out, I go through the motions of travelling to my cousin's place, sitting around small-talking with relatives I see once a year, hundling over a huge steamboat, nibbling on tiny morsels of food (steamboat food isn't my thing), making a dramatic effort to participate in the cleaning-up efforts and indulge in one round of mahjong with cousins and/or aunts before finally calling it quits and heading home.
In between, of course, there's much effort in fielding awkward questions like, how much do you earn? Do you have a boyfriend? How much does he earn? *Deadpan*
***
This year there was a slight variant in the routine. A glitch in the system.
My mother decided that my relatives had to visit us on Day One for Dinner. The same people over the same steamboat (literally, she borrowed the pot from my aunt) eating the same type of food.
Agony x 2.
Of course Day One Dinner couldn't fall short of the Reunion standard, so my mother busied herself in the kitchen from morning. In fact, she was so busy preparing Day One Dinner that Day One Lunch involved a pack of instant noodles and my trusty microwave.
So as to differentiate her Day One Dinner from aunt's Reunion one, my mother was opening cans of abalone with a vengeance. There was abalone stock in the steamboat, cooked abalone to munch on while waiting for food to cook and even abalone in our yu sheng!
What the...
Another variant in the CNY routine was the unannounced appearance of my cousin's girlfriend. Said girlfriend has been a mystery to my extended family for about 3 or 4 years now. We've heard rumours of said girlfriend, but never had the honour of meeting her. And she showed up at Day One Dinner.
My mother was elated.
My dad was over the moon with this new found listener. He bombarded her with stories of the days long gone, of little known facts of the recent tsunami tradegy, of anecdotes of family history.
The poor girl just sat there.
I was rather indifferent to her presence. To which I received much grief.
My bad.
Other than the above, Day One Dinner was an exact replica of Reunion Dinner with the exception of location. How fun.
***
Til next year.
// posted by the commentator @ 12:26 am 
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