This may be very short, so just a warning there. Not like you can't already see it.

An interesting trend is afoot. Assuming anyways that two occurances can be called a trend if there were no other occurances in their category.

I have now had two blood relatives come and stay with me in my home. my brother came and stayed with me over Christmas '98, and then my cousin stayed with me this week. We did very little of the same things, but we made one similar stop. That stop was an establishment called Anubus Warpus, a tattoo/body piercing place on Haight.

My cousin, who never even got her ears pierced growing up, now has a nose screw. It looks good though. My concern is that this will somehow be blamed on me. She's a (gulp) grown adult, but I know how my family mindset works.

I was the oldest of four (later expanded to nine) grandchildren. This is in a family so enmeshed that my grandmother and all her offspring live in walking distance from one another. While they didn't always live quite that close, they did spend a lot of time and energy on each other. My father and both of his siblings even all got divorces together. And of course, as the logical offshoot of that everyone my generation goes away to college and doesn't look back.

As children we together with our cousins a lot. When we were very young we would have Sunday Brunch together every week. But as the three nuclear family units began to fall apart, this arraingent began to taper off. My grandfather than came up with an idea that I think has greatly shaped all of our lives.

He declared every Sunday to be 'Mystery Trip Day'. After lunch, he would drive around and pick up all the grandchildren. We would spend the afternoon in an activity of our choice. The idea was to take turns picking out the activity. It was called a Mystery trip because it was a mystery to him. He wouldn't know the plan until he picked us up.

The important rule to the Mystery Trips is that there were next to no rules. We couldn't hurt anyone, we had to wear seatbelts in the car, and the under 10's had to hold hands crossing streets and parking lots. The idea was to give us a vacation from the universal childhood occupation of being ordered around all the time. This also came at a time, and I don't know how intentional this was on his part, when all four of us were watching our parents' marriages fall apart. It always was to me an opportunity to escape from the stresses in my life for a few hours a week.

But it came with it's own stresses. My grandfather is of the belief that who is right and wrong in any situation is determined by age. I was the oldest, I Knew Better. At least none of us were psychos. My father, as a boy, would be chased around by a knife-wielding younger brother, only to have his parents intervine by explaining to him that "Warren is younger and just doesn't know any better. You should try harder not to upset him." But anyhow, anything anyone else did wrong was always blamed on me. The whole family was convinced that I held some sort of pesuasive power over my brother and cousins. Erica liked the same sorts of activities I did, so of course I was taking her turns to pick where to go. I always felt responsible for everyone else. And this continues. She got into a fender bender a few years back, and my grandmother actually had the balls to blame it partially on the influence of me getting in a car accident one time 13 years ago.

Anyhow, I know this nose piercing will somehow be credited to me. Even though I have never pierced anything more exotic than my ears (lest you think I'm a complete square, I do have seven piercings, just none not on my ears). But I do have tattoos, and I was the first to get any sort of body art. Quarters has a tongue stud, but he's not seen as an influence the way I am.

And I said this would be a short entry.

This Entry is dedicated in Loving Memory to Papa A.

-CRbE