So my cousin had a baby.

And this gives me an opportunity to talk about the overwhelming creepiness of my mom's side of the family!

So. We are talking about my oldest cousin, on my mom's side of the family. (I have 6 cousins, 4 on one side and 2 on the other, and all of them are girls. This is just a fun fact that has nothing to do with anything.) She's the first one in this generation to reproduce, since the rest of us are still preoccupied with college or grad school (on both sides of my family, if you do not go to grad school, you bring Shame upon your parents. Seriously. I have one cousin who is not planning to go, and she is, like, the black sheep.) Also, no one in my family reproduces before the age of 30. I don't really know why, probably because of the grad school thing, but it means my parents can't harass me about my refusal to date for at least another few years, which is fine by me.

So my cousin has the baby, and it's a boy, and all is well. And then my mother tells me what she named it, and I am floored. I obviously cannot tell you what she named the poor thing, but trust me, it was bad. Apparently they decided to give it a surname from her husband's family for a first name, and a surname from ours for a middle name. And it was not a good combination. Because the surname from our family is an actual first name (somewhat archaic, but I've come across it) and the surname from her husband's family is nothing that could ever be mistaken for a first name from any time period. It's really unfortunate. I don't she why she couldn't at least have switched them, but whatever. My mom was telling me all this, and she didn't know why either, because her siblings (my aunt and uncle) don't really talk to her (I don't know, they didn't approve of something she did or didn't do. I don't really bother to keep up.)

Actually, there is quite a lot I could write about my mother's relationship with her family. I try not to know the details, but I can't help having a general outline because when I was at home, every time my grandfather called, she would take his call with gritted teeth, then complain to me for an hour afterwards about what a misogynistic jerkwad he is, and how she has a career and can't keep the house immaculate like some goddamn 50's housewife, and how her parents used to make her polish all the silverware before their dinner parties, and meanwhile I'm all "Yes, yes, terrible, look, I think I have somewhere else I'm supposed to be right now." I don't know why it was always me. I think my dad and brother deliberately fled the area. And now I live over here and she still does this, but over Skype.

But anyway. All this happened, and I was suddenly reminded of the Creepy Embroidered Family Tree, and I cannot believe I've never talked about this before, because it's so marvelously weird. (Okay, actually I mostly just pretend my mom's side of the family and everything associated with them doesn't exist, but you know what I mean.) My mom's side of the family apparently used to be very well off (they aren't anymore) and apparently they kept close track of their genealogy. So, someone embroidered this family tree, which has, I think, everyone in the family starting from when they came over from England, and is pretty big. Which is, you know, a little obsessive, but not all that bad, until you consider that some of us aren't on it. Like, two of my cousins are on there, and my uncle's wife, who married into the family, but my dad isn't on there, and David and I aren't either. I remember being totally offended by that when I was little. I'm okay with it now, because I prefer that people not be reminded about my middle name, but now the fact that we even have The Embroidered Family Tree creeps me out. I blame J. K. Rowling. (Incidentally, this would be even funnier if I could tell you what my mom's maiden name is.) Anyway, I'm now wondering if my cousin's baby is going to be put on there, because that is seriously not a name I would want immortalized if it were mine. Poor kid. And also, you see why I preferred to spend the summers in the empty house that belonged to my dad's side of the family, rather than get dragged to visit my mom's relatives, who are all kind of terrifying.