Dinner with Ogres

"I feel like we had dinner with ogres" my husband said as we were getting ready for bed. I had to chuckle, because I agreed. Unfortunately, the ogres we were talking about were my brother and nephews.

I love my brother dearly. He's got a good heart. But in spite of my memories to the contrary, I really cannot believe he and I were raised in the same house. I'm not exactly a formal person. I don't generally stand on ceremony. But my dear brother has the social graces of a musk ox.

And so after spending the afternoon in the kitchen to make a meal and hauling it all outside to the patio furniture, we were rewarded with endless talk about the various emissions my one nephew kept producing at a restaurant the night before. This was followed by crude jokes about Star Wars characters. There was a little bit of variety to the conversation - comments from the kids about not liking the food and frequent reminders for the 6 year old to wipe his nose.

As my former Marine husband noted, they could get quite crude in the service - when it was just them. But they at least employed tact when in mixed company or around kids. In 40 years, my brother still hasn't learned that.

And he's an example to a new generation of ogrelings.

And people wonder why I want to move to another state sometimes.