There were times at Cousins Day when you could hardly keep track of the boob. You remember the boob, don't you? The prize my cousin Kathy came up with for the person who inadvertently discards a wild card while playing "65."
I think Peach won the award for getting it the most times in one day, I won the award for keeping it the shortest period of time, since I think my mother lost it to me on one round and got it back the next. We all, at one time or another, had the dubious distinction of owning the boob.
We have put the cap on Cousins Day #7 and are looking forward to #8, November 12 (in case you want to mark your calendars!)
It was Kathy's turn to bring drinks this time and she brought a drink her son told her about, UV Blue vodka (which is raspberry flavored), mixed with lemonade. She brought enough to supply an army.
It was beautiful (especially in my mother's blue-stemmed glasses) and it tasted yummy too. I should also assure everyone that we hardly made a dent in that gallon of liquid and left most of it behind for my mother to share with her stepson, who is coming to watch the football game tonight.
When we started Cousins Day, several months ago, we would leave my house to drive to my mother's somewhere between 10:30 and 11 a.m. Now Peach and Kathy are showing up earlier and earlier. We also used to have lunch and then play cards until 5, when we would break to fix drinks. I wonder what it says about us that our time to start drinking has changed to 3 p.m!
Perhaps that's why by 5 p.m. we were all holding our sides and groaning that our stomach muscles hurt from all the laughing. They say laughter is good therapy. If that's the case, there are no four more mentally healthy people in California than the four of us this afternoon!
It was my turn to bring dinner and I brought that fabulous lamb pizza that I made a few weeks ago. It was a big hit, as I hoped it would be, even with Peach, who hadn't admitted that she really doesn't like lamb.
In fact it was such a hit that we started talking about putting out a Cousins Day cookbook, saving the recipes for meals and drinks and some comments about various Cousins Days. When we have enough material collected, I'll put out a book from Lulu that anybody who is interested can order.
This mainly came about because the 2nd generation cousins are so jealous of our Cousins Day and starting to talk about having their own. We figured this could be a guidebook for them -- or anyone who wants to try something similar.
The Card Gods were good to me this Cousins Day and I won more than my usual number of games. Usually my role is to bring enough money to keep paying the others, who always win the damn game.
The object of the game is to get the lowest score. You play 13 hands in each game and the winner of each hand gets 20 cents. At the end of the 13 hands, the one with the lowest score overall gets the rest of the money. As you can see from the scorecard, I didn't do too badly for myself! (This was taken halfway thru one game, the first game I ultimately won.)
My mother is not a good loser.
Wouldn't you think that she'd be pleased to see her daughter, whom she proclaims to love so much finally win a hand or two? or three? But nooooooo.
We called it an early night (you don't think that starting drinking vodka drinks at 3 p.m. had anything to do with it, do you?) and all, except Kathy slept so soundly that only Kathy was awake to hear the cat fight that went on outside the living room window in the middle of the night, but my mother found tufts of cat fur on the porch in the morning!
We came home full of good food, good drinks, good camaraderie, and more good memories...and already counting the days until we get to do it all over again!
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