Family Saga

Well, the last few days have been interesting. On Friday, my Aunt Ingrid (Mum’s sister) and Grandpa (Mum’s Dad) have come over from overseas. I don’t want to say which country so people that I know won’t easily recognise me (if they happen to stumble on this). I’ll just say that it’s in Europe. From now on I will refer to it as POB (place of birth).

Anyway, I got heaps of presents from my relatives there. My Mum and I were amazed at how much stuff they got for us. It felt like it was my birthday or something. My cousins (Ingrid’s kids), Gordon (17yrs) and Yvonne (16yrs) got us some CDs of European Pop. It all sounds like something you’d hear on Eurovision. I love it!

And the clothes they got us are so European. You won’t find anything like it here in Australia. All very stylish (but not over the top, except one yellow coat/jacket for Mum which made her look like an egg. I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw it). It made me a bit nostalgic and miss my relatives. Yvonne, Gordan, Andrew and I used to play together all the time when we spent the weekend at our grandparents. Being the oldest, the others followed me around and so we ended up getting to a lot of mischief. The good old times…

Ingrid and Grandpa also brought a wedding video of a woman who stayed with us for a while when she was in Australia. This woman is a niece of an extremely famous POBian person. My Dad said that he’s almost equivalent of Sinatra. Yes, that’s how famous he is. At the wedding there were all those famous film producers, musicians, actors, doctors, lawyers etc. I just can’t believe that our family in POB moves in such high social circles. If I was in POB, I would have so many connections! I would just be able to chat to famous film producers to see if April and my film scripts are any good and if they have a chance. They’d be able to give me advice.

Also, all the stories that Ingrid was telling us sounded like a soap-opera. My 3rd cousin (who’s 22) who is in another European country was married twice and engaged three times already! And this girl is the most saddest person. When she came to my grandparents once, when the four of us were there, I decided that I didn’t like her and since then the other three don’t like her.

I’ll give you an example of what she did. She stole stuff without even knowing. How stupid can you be?! She blamed it on her first husband and divorced him. So now she has a criminal record and can’t get a proper job. So she doesn’t work at all. She’s so lazy. She goes to her mother’s home to have dinner and then goes to sleep without helping. And she complains that she gets really tired all the time. Her current husband goes to work at 5am so she has to wake up to give him breakfast and that’s the only work she does for the whole day.

And Ingrid was telling us how with every husband/fiancé she says that she’s madly in love with them and marries them after a month of knowing them. And then cries when they break up that she can’t live without them.

I remember when she was little she’d sit on my grandma’s sofa all day and boss her around -
“Can you get me a blanket, I’m cold!”
”Can you bring me some food, I’m hungry!”
”No, I don’t want this, do you have any cakes?”
“I don’t like this one, can you buy me another one?”
“Your grandchildren are bothering me! They are being mean!”
“Can you tell them to stop laughing, they are being too loud. I’m getting a headache.”

No wonder we didn’t like her. I was so happy when Grandma told her to get up and stop whinging.

How can someone like her find three guys to marry her?! While I can’t find one!

This is just one of many stories that I’ve been hearing for the last few days. I’ve been completely distracted by it all.

Also, it’s so funny to see my Mum with her younger sister. She becomes all bossy and older sistery. Ingrid is really bubbly and was giggling with me when Mum told us off for something minor. Ingrid and Mum are so cute together. Although they’re 40 now, they acted like little school girls gossiping about all of our relatives.

And Grandpa hasn’t been as irritating as I expected. He was extremely nice and happy to be here. He doesn’t want to go back to POB. The first time he came here and went back, Grandma said that he was really depressed to be back. POB is not exactly a nice country to live in. There’s a lot of racism and just the law doesn’t really do anything. You can bribe anyone, even police. Culturally it’s very well developed but in other aspects it’s lacking a lot.