Que los cumplas feliz!

Yesterday was Manu's mom's birthday (and today's my mom's birthday -- hi, mom!). Just as I stereotypically imagine any Latin American, Italian, Greek, or Jewish family function should be, a birthday in Manu's family means a gaggle of family members sitting, standing, and stumbling around a giant table drinking wine and eating meat. Just as the family members are many, so are these birthdays frequent.

Manu dislikes these gatherings. He moped when his Tio Carlos called us lovebirds and seemed not thrilled about the fact that everyone was comparing him to Freud because of his beard and round glasses, and the fact that he studies psychology. "I'm not even studying psychoanalysis! Besides, Freud didn't have long hair," he said, and then frowned at me when I patted him sympathetically on the head and called him my poor Freudito. Then he skulked off to pet the dog. I asked him if it wasn't a bit rude to hide like that, and he responded that, well, not really. His family is used to him disappearing-- indeed, I've heard many times how, growing up, he was always the child who got lost. "Mariana and Martin would follow Cristina like little ducklings," I'm told by various relatives, while Manu wandered off to inspect a dead bird or stick his finger in a crack on the sidewalk. Mom and ducklings would turn a corner, and, oops.

Likewise, he's always been protective of his personal space. Before he could speak in words, he had a vocabulary that consisted of the sounds "la-la" and "ka-ka." "La-la" conveyed favorableness, while "ka-ka" was distaste. He would carry around a big stick, and if someone came too close to him, he would whack them with it and shout, "ka-ka!"

When it comes to extended family, I grew up with plenty of personal space. My cousins, etc. are spread thin (there really aren't very many of them to be spread) from sea to shining sea, and just about the only time we were all ever in the same place was when someone died.

Perhaps that's why I, unlike my better half, actually enjoy these My-Big-Fat-Greek-Wedding-type get-togethers that revolve around something other than a funeral (though, I'll admit, the seventeen of us huddled in the state park to illegally scatter Grandma's ashes by the Elfin Forest after telling the park ranger that we'd been singing glory, glory, hallelujah just for the hell of it, was actually kind of fun). My favorite part of the birthday party was when Cristina opened her present from the kids and us novios: a pair of tall brown leather boots, with a bit of a heel. She liked them a lot, and they promptly got passed around the giant table, so that all the uncles could take their turn smelling them and pulling on them to demonstrate what a very nice gift they were indeed-- the real thing, made of strong, fragrant leather. They're Argentines, after all. They should know.