Hi Everyone!
Well our June trip to Charlotte, NC (my cousin is doing a dance showcase) and Norwood, NC (to visit my Grandmother) got cancelled "due to circumstances beyond our control". However, all is not lost! The benefits are thus: we get to save a bit of money for an even better July trip over my birthday, and we are going out to dinner with a couple of friends this weekend to a restaurant which my friend swears is authentic Italian -- a pretty daring promise considering that my date is from Italy. We shall see. I have yet to eat Italian food outside of Italy, but as long as it tastes good, that's what matters. And a good wine list is always a bonus.
On top of that, even though we won't be leaving the Triangle in June, we have done and will be doing some pretty awesome stuff anyway!
My Uncle David arrived from San Francisco and stayed here for a couple weeks. It's always nice to see him, even though he was pretty busy with some personal stuff when he was here. He was able to make it to my family's first ever Pool Party and Pig Pickin', which my parents hosted in order to thank the neighbors for making them feel so welcome over the past 8 or 9 months, and to "officially" start the Summer!
The Pool Party started at 3pm, and the pool was populated primarily by neighborhood kids to begin with. I joined them shortly after 3 (I'm ashamed to say that I have lived in that house since September and I had never stepped foot in the pool until that day. But in fairness, much of that time was winter and I spend most -- OK all -- of my weekends with Edo).
One of my friends arrived around 3:30 and we swam for about an hour or so, and then other people started arriving right as I could feel my cheeks turning pink so I got out of the pool. After my other friends arrived, I was pleased to find that several of them had brought their swimsuits and happily went in the pool to cool off on that humid, hot day.
The party was catered by White Swan BBQ (no way were my parents going to get up at 4am to slow roast a pig all day!) and they brought a LOT of food. There was half a pig, fried chicken, plus potato salad, boiled potatoes, slaw, hush puppies, and sweet iced tea. Our friends brought over lots of alcohol plus, like six cakes, some of which weren't even opened :( No offense everyone! There was just wayyyyy too much food!
We ended up having about 80 people there, but several people were able to take home doggy bags with barbecue and sides and desserts.
One of my friends who's Lebanese brought homemade hummus and baklava, plus a fabulous aperitif called Blackhaus Schnapps which is a blackberry flavored vodka. Apparently "aperitif" can mean different things depending on who you're talking to, because I always considered it a drink along the lines of Baileys or Kahlua, at least as far as proof is concerned. But this stuff was 40% alcohol, which in my mind, qualifies as "hard liquor". But whatever... it tasted REALLY good! I highly recommend it!
One of my Dad's friend's from Indiana commented that apparently, The South has come a long way given the diversity of the crowd at this particular Pig Pickin'. Beyond the fact that there were white Americans and African-Americans present, the following countries were represented (and I mean these are people who are actually from these countries, not second, third, or eighth generation-ers who grew up in America but call themselves Irish or whatever): Italy, France, India, China, Nepal, Lebanon, and Turkey. Our Indianian visitor was impressed by the fact that everyone was getting along, there were no shootings, and no racial slurs. But to me, it demonstrates what a bad rap The South obviously still has in the rest of the country, because he's the only person who even thought twice about it! Sure, we still have racism and poverty and all of the things that embarrass most Southerners and that some Northerners like to use as an excuse for thinking they are better than us, but the fact is that the world I live in, the circles I run in, and the people I know are very open and tolerant. Why shouldn't a Turk, an Indian, and an Italian be able to enjoy a conversation over dinner? Food is international, and every culture communes over meals. So why wouldn't we all be able to do it together? *stepping off soapbox* At any rate, a good time was had by all, and that's what matters.
Last weekend, Italy and the US competed in a World Cup match that ended in a tie. This is a good thing because Edo and I were not forced to split due to national pride :) To be honest, neither of us particularly cares about who wins, but we did enjoy watching the game and spending time with our friends at The Federal Pub in Durham. However, just because we weren't concerned about the outcome, doesn't mean that nobody else cared. There were Italians and Americans, sitting dangerously close to one another in retrospect, who were shouting, biting their nails, bitching at the ref (but really, he did suck... three red cards in one game? come on... the only person who deserved the red card was the Italian who elbowed the American player in the eye). After the game, we went home, watched a movie, and had an early night. Man, we're too old to drink beer in the afternoon.
So there we have the June highlights. Even though there weren't any trips to be discussed, we still had a good time at home! My parents haven't made any sort of a commitment, but an annual Pig Pickin' would be really fun (hint hint Mom and Dad hehe)
In the famous words of Eeyore, "thanks for noticin' me"
~Tiffani
