Girl vs. Men vs. Food

So, you love your family, don't you?  On this thought I'm not really referring to your spouse and children but, to your original family unit....parents, siblings, your extended family....even toothless Great-Aunt Ginny.  I love mine, though everyone has scattered so far that there are cousins I potty-trained with (and, they were BOYS) that I haven't seen in over ten years.  That just doesn't seem right after years of bonding over basement horror movies, fried chicken picnics each summer at Kennywood, sitting at the kiddie tables every blasted get together, and general shared hooligan activities.

But that seems about to change.

Because my Mom's half of the family unit is in town to mark my Aunt's 80th birthday, and to eat bodacious quantities of family reunion-type food.  How do I know this about the food?  Because most of these family member people are men who were once boys who had Paul Bunyan-sized appetites, and could down a plate loaded with 6.7 pounds of Thanksgiving yumminess in under five minutes.  How do I know this?  Because I timed them.  And I never made it to the table to start eating my first plate before they finished their second.  Either I was pathetically slow at the buffet table or they were freakishly fast eaters of mass food quantities.  I, was not slow.  I, never got enough dark meat. 

They totally missed their calling as competitive eaters.

So I've been training for this reunion.  Oh yeh....the girl whose own mother introduces her to eligible men as "my daughter? she eats like a lumberjack"....plans to get my fair share of reunion food bounty and ensure that all children under 18 get theirs, too.  It's a risky strategy I can't share here, just in case competitive eating strategy hackers are creeping on this blog and, you know, then somehow plugging into my cousins' fancy Matrix phones to hijack the plan.

Because this little post, is the center of the universe.  Teasing! 

Truly, all kidding aside, I'm so excited to be with everyone again that I almost can't stand waiting a day to reunite and, hopefully, spark the desire to make certain we actually live as a unit.....even across thousands of miles.  Because there's nothing quite like the connections with people who really know what makes you tick.  And love you anyway.

And who don't mess, with the girl who eats like a lumberjack.