Dwyer Family Gathering

Most of Sunday my body had no idea what time it was.   Suffern is at about the same latitude as Eugene, so the sun's more or less in the same altitude.  But I unconsciously expected the sun to be three hours, or forty-five degrees, behind where it actually was.   Also, we were eating at radically different times.  Mostly, I tried to not think about what the clock said on the west coast and not nap at weird intervals.

Tropical Storm Henri sent bands of rain to deluge the Dwyer Family Party.   This was both good and bad.  The good part was that the day wasn't like a sauna, and the rain pulled dust and pollen out of the air.  The clouds were a welcome change of place after months of arid skies in Oregon.   The bad part was that it kept everyone inside, which made face mask usage An Issue.

Mark and I (and The Child a week before us), had decided that we'd wear masks around Mark's mom so we didn't expose her to the Delta Varient if we'd picked it up flying.   So wearing a mask wasn't a problem for us. 

Once a vending pop-up tent was deployed in the back yard, it was easier to social distance, and The Issue went away.   Between rounds of deluge, tipping out the water which had collected in the folds of the pop-up became a kind of bonding experience.  Folks rotated between the smoking lounge in the opened garage, the pop-up tent in the back yard, and the living room where Grandma and a metric ton of potato chips, cake, potato salad, mini sandwiches, soft drinks, and varios dips were.   The bad-mitten game planned for the day was cancelled on account of the storm.

What I find interesting about Dwyer Family Gatherings are the sibling dynamics.  Also, a number of the Dwyers smoke; so the garage/smoking-lounge turned into the place where people processed their truths as trails of smoke wreathed their heads.   I'm the oldest, only brother in my family, and my sister is the only youngest sister;  this plays out in a straight-forward fashion between us.  Mark's two older brothers, and his mix of four sisters -- two older, two younger -- creates a more dynamic dynamic, with folks trading off on older-sibling-to-younger-sibling relations depending on the parties involved.  Mark is the youngest brother, which means that he frequently invokes youngest-brother-nuclear-deterrent strategies.   I'm pretty sure that no matter how old one gets, when one is dealing with one's siblings, one reverts back to about twelve when is confronted with them.  

The award for most scary story goes to B, a family friend from Ireland, who related a couple of tales growing up during The Troubles, the most traumatic being the time he was eight, watching "Lassie" at home, when soldiers knocked down the door, held a rifle to his mom's head, and wanted to know where his dad was.  

Scary in a different way was the World-Famous Dwyer Butter (this example is very early stage Dwyer Butter, as there are no crumbs embedded in it, and it isn't partially melted).