My little cousins think I am like the awesomest ever.

I have a lot of cousins. I'm never sure how the first cousin, second cousin, once removed, twice removed thing works, but with the extent of relatives I have, I guess I should figure it out for sure by now. Anyway, I spent the fourth of July at a big family cookout at my aunt & uncle's cabin on a lake. Different, um, more responsible uncle from the previous post, by the way. My, um, less responsible uncle from the previous post cooked up 3 turkeys and 1 venison roast on a giant half-barrel grill with rotisserrie. Let me tell you, it was damn good eating. Makes me glad I did about 300 crunches earlier in the day and 100 pushups since the first course probably negated the effects of that exercise after about 30 seconds. Such is life.

So, back to the cousins. I have 12 first cousins, and I am almost the youngest of all my generation's cousins. My oldest first cousin is in her fifties and my youngest first cousins are 21-year-old twins. The only one between them and myself is my sister, who is 3 years younger than me. What this means is that all are at the age to be married (or not) and have children. Or neither, as I seem to fall into and am reminded of rather often up here. Most of my cousins have children, which adds up to 21 first cousins once removed (at least I think that's how it works). So you could say I have a total of 33 first cousins between the ages of six months and 50-something. And that's just on my dad's side of the family and not even counting cousins' spouses or my second cousins (grandchildren of my grandparents' siblings). I'm amazed anyone even cares about my marital status, to be honest. I'm somewhat surprised anyone even remembers, really, with all of that to keep track of.

Anyway, I spent most of the day playing basketball with four of my cousins, ages 14, 13, 11 and 9. I realize they like playing basketball with me more than anybody else because:
A) I'm still good at basketball, even if I haven't played in a year
B) My shot looks like a textbook shot should look, even if it doesn't go in all the time
C) I tend to hit really dumb lucky shots
D) I let them beat me in P-I-G and don't make it seem like I threw the game
E) I let them make fun of me if I miss a shot by a lot
F) I will make just as much fun of them when they miss a shot by a whole lot
G) I don't get ticked when I get beaned in the head by someone whose shot was way, way, way off
H) I don't get ticked the fourth time this happens
I) I tell them how to do basketball-related stuff better without being condescending

So yeah, I guess there's plenty of reasons for them to want me to be back there every day for the rest of my vacation. Maybe I will change my views about children being punishment for sex. Maybe. I guess I wouldn't mind playing basketball with them for the rest of the week. That is, if I didn't have 3,000 other commitments to deal with. Why do vacations end up that way, anyway? My only plan was to sleep in every damn day and win the family golf tournament. Suddenly I'm supposed to be somewhere doing something almost every hour I'm awake while I'm up here. Not cool if you ask me, even if the vast majority of it is stuff I don't mind doing with people I don't mind seeing. Still, I'm on vacation. Don't talk to me about schedules. That's what iCal at work is for, and I ain't seein' no Macs around here, y'know? Now that I think about it, I ain't seein' many computers, period. No wonder I'm having to pay $3.95 at Caribou Coffee just to check my e-mail and give you wonderful people blog updates. I should set up one of those PayPal things so you people can make it worth my while. Ah, inspiration always strikes while one is on vacation, doesn't it?