"Thank God I married you off so I could get rid of you!" - BWM Maghanoy
"Whatever, you kicked her out to Grandma's house when she was like 12" - Remus Maghanoy

To this expression of family affection I say, "True dat, Grandma is my peeps."

Adventures in Maghandiego (More pics available in the photo album)

Lest you think I had forgotten about the Maghanoy family reunion here comes the recap of our San Diego adventure. The thing is I had forgotten that for the most part my family is not good at having "original" conversations. Don't get me wrong, Maghanoys love to hear themselves talk, but the actual words we speak tend to come from other sources, movies, songs, strangers we heard talk on the street. Also, although we make a lot of noise, it seems that we are more adept at shouting out one-liners than responding to what other people in the family might say. While this type of interaction is entertaining and enjoyable it makes for some difficulties in blog land. For example, here is a snippet of table conversation...

GAD Maghanoy - I think I might have parked in a red zone, I couldn't tell if it was red or green. (GAD is colorblind) We can't stay too long, I might get a ticket.
Zeus Maghanoy - Genke Deska. Blah, blah, blah speaking various foreign languages to himself.
Remus Maghanoy - I'm a man, made of brawn. Man who built the Eiffel Tower! (From Anchorman)
BWM Maghanoy - Look I drew Wee Willie Winkie! (There were paper tablecloths at the restaurant)
GAD - "What did I order for dinner?"

I just sat staring at them, it's really hard to make fun of all of them at once, so I have to plot out my strategy carefully. I can't pick on Zeus or Remus because they are too quick with their retorts, GAD was behaving so peacful and sweet that I felt it was unfair to take advantage. So I decided to start with the weakest link BWM Maghanoy. Not one to let an educational opportunity pass by, BWM was very busy drawing an array of characters on the table including "Old Mother Hubbard and Jack and Jill"

Me - "Hey Mom, maybe you should stop hanging out with five year olds since all your cultural references are nursery rhyme characters"
BWM Maghanoy - "Wee willie Winkie is cool!"
Me - "Don't you every watch movies or the news or something?" (This is of course a stupid strategy because BWM falls asleep the instant a movie comes on, she has movie-induced narcolepsy)
Remus- "Em, If you opened up Mom's head, you would see candyland"

In awe of Remus' burn I decide to let up on BWM for awhile to set myself up to the important task of rearranging everything on the table. I believe this opsessive-compulsiveness is a reaction to the chaos of dinner conversations during my formative years. Imagine living through an hour of this lunacy every night. All dysfunctionality aside I must congratulate the Maghanoys on several areas of personal growth...

1) My GAD did not yell at anybody the whole night. I was anticipating him to come back exploding like Mt. Helena after it took him more than 20 minutes to park, but he came back extremely calmly and ate his ahi in peace. Also he let us all eat our food without limiting our intake so that he could save our meals for his lunch the next day.

2) Zeus Maghanoy was quite generous with his filet mignon - or as he says fill-it-mig-none. Giving out a piece to each of us with very little complaint. And I was very impressed with his use of French at our quasi-french restaurant.

3) Remus Maghanoy has started listening to Shakira. What more could I ask?

4) BWM Maghanoy made it through dinner without bossing anybody. It was a miracle worthy of vatican recognition.

Congratulations Maghanoys! I have hope for us yet!

Postscript - Zeus and Remus are my younger brothers, Zeus being the elder of the two. My brothers have been nicknamed Zeus and Remus because these are two of the names my father, in the tradition of wildly bizarre Filipino naming, had originally suggested when we were born. It's horrifying, if I was born male, I could have ended up being named Zeus.