The Hot Wok Saga--The Day Sha-gon Fell (Literally)

It's been a while....mostly b/c I'm just busy with monotonous crudola. I have been busy with the occasional important things....my contract "negotiations" (they send me legal documents, I say "huh?", give them to my attorney (which sounds way more important than it actually is, especially since I'm paying him by the hour), and my "clinical coordinator," Regina, calls and lovingly pesters me to hurry up. .....of special note, My sister is about 28 weeks pregnant with twins (a boy AND a girl for those of you who didn't know) right now, and so the season of baby showers has begun. (A little early, but never fear, if she goes into premature labor, my other sisters can say she didn't miss having her shower.) She had one at our church a couple of weeks ago, and not to be outdone, her mother-in-law hosted one at their church today. To be in my family and participate in all activities involved therein, you must have a certain threshold (discounting any pharmacologic interventions) to tolerate multiple phone calls to have circular conversations about plans, frantic last minute changes of plans, huffy feelings, mountain-out-of-molehill transformative powers, etc, etc......This becomes more pronounced when you move away and then go back for a visit. All of this as a background to tell you about the events leading up to the shower today. The shower was scheduled for 2:00...I did not go to church this morning b/c I was, well, sleeping. Wrong or not, I worked about 90 hours last week, and didn't drive over until Sat. afternoon. The phone calls started around 10 am; (between the land line and my cell phone, I think I counted about 12 of these (thank God my dad doesn't have call waiting)): when one sister got out of early church and before the other (non-pregnant) one went to the regular service. They decided we would go eat with my pregnant sister and her husband (not to be excluded, b/c, well, doesn't every husband want to be parked up in the middle of 4 women right before a baby shower at a restaurant he doesn't even like? yeah, that's what I thought.). Fine...sounds good, I would go to the Hot Wok, even though I was too tired the day before to go to a really good Chinese restaurant with Dedra. My pregnant sister doesn't really like Chinese food anymore (it started about the time she began dating her husband...as referenced above...) but it was convenient and she wasn't totally repulsed by the thought, so we went. Anyway, at 12:15 my sister comes in the house wanting to know the plans..hello? didn't we cover this in the earlier phone calls? (yeah, plural)...after more discussion and an intimate explanation and demonstration of the bare minerals makeup system to her, and an arrangement of persons and gifts in vehicles as can only be politely described as worthy of an episode of the three stooges, we were off to the restaurant. At which time, my other sister and I get into a near-argument over who's going to pay. I proceed to get my drink, place it down on the table, and try to peacefully get some hot and sour soup. Well, the ice dispenser on the fountain drink machine went awry, spewing ice all over the floor. I moved quickly to avoid a pentecostal lady with a cane who was truckin' it to the sweet-n-sour pork, and never the most graceful person, slipped on the ice, therefore basically near-falling, and hit my right knee on the floor. Think of mary catherine gallagher. My sister, who fancies herself prone to premonitions and such, stated she had a feeling that would happen--she saw me walking fast at my dad's house and felt like I could fall--unfortunately for all of us involved, these declarations usually come AFTER the event has transpired. Today was no exception. I managed to make it back to the table with only 3 people seeing me, but not before the husband of the pentecostal lady asked me if I needed a lawyer....oh, so funny. She, for those of you who wondered, was safely seated back at the booth oblivious to the chain of events set into action by her hankering for a third serving of pork. Then, during the entire meal my other sister kept trying to force her chicken and garlic on my brother-in-law, who just kept eating his fried minced shrimp and spent the entire meal trying to impress us with an account of the evisceration of the 60 # doe he killed last weekend..(is that even legal?....how manly....especially when his 85 year old grandpa killed an 10 point, 230 pound buck....but I digress.) All the while the twins are apparently playing tug of war in my sister's belly, and a heated conversation ensued between the elder sisters and myself why I don't want to date our 3o something year old metrosexual music minister.....apparently I missed a gaze of longing one sunday when i was home (uh, maybe he just forgot his contacts...?) Did I mention the Vietnamese pop music playing (loudly) over the loudspeaker the entire time? I kid you not, this is a factual re-telling of the events of my day. Ahhhhhhhh.......... Anyway, we finally made it to the shower, which was an event unto itself, but a story for a different time. My sister enjoyed it, and got some nice gifts, etc.....and that's all that matters. She has been doing well so far, so we'll just keep praying for healthy babies and a healthy mom.