So, yes, I disappeared for[...counting...] four days there. (Friday’s whiskey river-based meditation brought to you through the miracle of WordPress’s scheduled-posts feature.) Long story short (so unlike me, I know), for now: I spent the time with The Brother, up in NJ. We were joined Saturday by The Sisters.
That’s the three of them in the photo above (click it to enlarge), channeling Gilbert & Sullivan; and, for reference, a somewhat earlier photo of all four of us in the photo at right.
(If you want to try your hand at morphing them from their 1950-something selves to now, note that the bottom row at the right is in the opposite order from the sequence in the top photo.)
And just to keep things fair — actually more than fair — I’ll include one photo of me (and The Younger of Two Sisters) below the fold.
Scary, wot?
(The real stars of the photo above are not the two of us, but what we are in the process of obliterating — from this place, the best bakery on earth. (It was when the earliest photo was taken, too.) I don’t know why I was trying to be so delicate about not dripping cream filling in my lap, since indelicacy practically seems the point.)
Edit to add: What we’re eating are chocolate-covered (or -iced) cream doughnuts. They were 48 hours old at the time of this photo but still capable of immobilizing us with their nostalgic ecstatic sucrosity. Although, true, we don’t look particularly immobilized at the moment.
Oh, John. I am so pleased you got to go home and visit family. Hope you had a blast, but glad you are home safe and sound.
Hmmm word verification–their cinch
Methinks there is a story there.
Ah, so that’s you! And said hat! But I thought you ran after a fez!?
Welcome back John – donuts and kids (big or small!) Ours are bereft that Krispy Kreme are apparently pulling out of the uk …
They look like very fun people, and those doughnuts look oh-so good.
Glad you had a good and a safe trip.
Thanks for the good wishes, all.
Julie: Seeing the potential story in their cinch is why we need more horsefolk as writers.
Squirrel: You would not believe how many and varied are the hats I run — have run — after. You bet there’s a fez among them. And at least one of the sibs has a photo of me (with the other two) in one of the hats in this photo. (If I get a chance, I’ll post a photo of the hat I was given over the weekend — won’t be wearing it, though!)
Kate: I found out over the weekend that Krispy Kreme pulled out of New Jersey, too — leaving at least one nephew bereft. (Of course I just smirked, ’cause I knew I’d be returning to the Deep South.)
Jules: Don’t they, though? (People and doughnuts both.) The moment — early Saturday, when it was just The Brother and I — when I first opened the ole maw to wrap around one of those chocolate + cream-filled bad boys was exquisite.
Heh. My own word-verification phrase: sibly division.
recaptcha: family crumbled
as in Crumb buns, not crumbled family!
Have you ever tried chocolate-iced hamster? No, not me either. Apparently I prefer them raw and in the unadulterated form.
Btw – just thought I’d mention that I drop in on a regular basis but am not very prolific in the leaving responses department. After multitudinous years on the web I’ve recently adopted a new policy concerning leaving comments on blogs; if you don’t have anything particularly useful or new to say then just shut up (present commentary contrary to this). However I remember a while back reading at Kate’s place that you were, in fact, a published author, and that the sordid details could be found here if one were willing to run after your hat. Which I did. I just wanted to say that although it was surely a painful and very confusing experience for you, you captured it beautifully here on your blog.
Cheers!
Brian
cynth: Ah yes. The crumb buns… When Mike and I stopped there last week, I thought of the doughnuts and the sticky buns, obviously, and also the butter cake — but completely forgot Mike’s favorite crumb buns. Dang, a missed opportunity. Next time!
Brian: Well HEY. Good to see you out in the sunshine!
Chocolate-iced hamster: you must have been channeling the future, in the form of this post.
On a related topic, over the weekend I heard a hilarious story about a family member whose gerbil died a couple months ago. Since the New Jersey ground was frozen, and hence discouraged burial rituals, the little fella was being kept in the basement freezer until things warmed up a bit. I don’t even want to speculate on the surprise in store for an unknowing someone simply in the mood for a popsicle…
(Thank you for the kind remarks about the account of the “confusing experience,” by the way — that’s certainly the best two-word summary anyone has yet offered about it. :)
[...] by design from our “normal” lives. I’d visited my brother for a few days a couple years ago, and my sisters, too, came by for a day. For SibFest ’11, though, we all traveled to a [...]