Some of the grandkids were over today to complete my transformation into a beached whale.\u00a0 More food appeared from heaven knows where and eggnog and desserts rounded out the meal.\u00a0 And after some talk of this and that we got down to a high stakes game of Texas hold \u2019em.\u00a0 The game was played completely for pride with no cash changing hands.\u00a0 The chips were divvied up and play went on for hours with fortunes waning and waxing almost at random.\u00a0 All except Camera Girl.\u00a0 She is not only a canny bettor but also possesses supernatural luck.\u00a0 And finally, it came down to her and me.\u00a0 I was holding a pair of aces and the flop was nothing to write home about.\u00a0 She and I were betting very heavily.\u00a0 On the turn an ace showed up.\u00a0 The final card was a second queen.\u00a0 We had put most of our chips in the pot and I went all in.\u00a0 I showed her my two aces and she showed me her pair of queens.\u00a0 Four of a kind!\u00a0 I accused her of witchcraft and spent the rest of the game railing at her from the sidelines.<\/p>\n
Luckily coffee was served shortly after the game was over and I could gracefully move on from my somewhat unsportsmanlike behavior to my more dignified pose as pater familia and patriarch of a great nation.\u00a0 All question of who beat whom in a meaningless game of chance was left behind and more important matters took center stage.\u00a0 Discussions about which were the best Christmas toys or gifts were spirited.\u00a0 The remote-controlled planes seemed to be the people\u2019s choice.\u00a0 I watched some cellphone video of these battery powered wonders buzzing the neighborhood at remarkable speed and surprising acrobatic agility.\u00a0 The remarkable thing was how they survived the crashes I witnessed into the ground and trees.\u00a0 It seems the drone revolution has reached the adolescent fraction of the American population and it is being enthusiastically embraced.\u00a0 I was happy to see that these flying wonders did not include munitions of even the mock variety.\u00a0 A small victory for world peace.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow is work.\u00a0 But I\u2019m hoping it will be a short week and I\u2019ll be able to extend the family fun a while longer while the kids are still off from school next week.\u00a0 It\u2019s heartening to see that simple games and food can still serve as an adequate excuse for fun.\u00a0 No video games were played.\u00a0 We even left the television off.\u00a0 Sibling rivalry and parental scolding were not absent and some folks were too drowsy from food to avoid snoozing on recliners but for the most part the generations showed sufficient tolerance for each other to bridge the boomer\/millennial\/zoomer chasms of culture and conditioning.\u00a0 And even that most fraught relationship, father-in-law\/son-in-law was carried through with mutual regard and tolerance.\u00a0 Having now been on both sides of that relationship I have equal respect for both partners in that arrangement.\u00a0 It\u2019s a strange but important set of rituals that bind up families and benefit everyone.\u00a0 But for grown men it will always be a somewhat awkward interaction.\u00a0 Luckily the wives and daughters can help to smooth out and buffer the whole dance.<\/p>\n
I was thinking of writing something about the H-1B visa squabble going on.\u00a0 But I\u2019ll leave that up to various talking heads to battle it out.\u00a0 Trump should be smart enough to figure out which way the wind blows on immigration, legal and illegal.\u00a0 If he can\u2019t figure it out, he\u2019s not going to have a very productive presidency.\u00a0 Instead, I\u2019ll spend a little more time calculating the odds of getting a four of a kind in a Texas hold \u2018em hand.\u00a0 Now that\u2019s an important question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some of the grandkids were over today to complete my transformation into a beached whale.\u00a0 More food appeared from heaven knows where and eggnog and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2860],"tags":[4488,2093],"class_list":["post-31756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-reclaiming-the-family","tag-family-gathering","tag-reclaiming-the-family"],"yoast_head":"\n