Spending a day with my relatives is sort of like hanging out at the insane asylum for unemployed comedians.  And I am writing this with a perfectly straight face.  Line mouth and all.

Here are a few snippets from the conversations I recently had to endure.

“If they don’t want Oscar Pistorius to flee the country, why don’t they just take his legs.”  “Ya, all he could do is bum around all day. ” Followed by “he could always bum a ride” and “that would be a bummer.”

“You tickle too hard.  Are you trying to puncture my pancreas?”

“There really is a restaurant called One Hung Lung.”

“Grey hares are cute, but it doesn’t mean they belong on my head.”

We stopped conversing briefly to pose for a family photo.  My uncle (who was giving me rabbit ears), discovered that I now have a few thousand  grey hairs poking through my titian (sounds better than ginger) locks and proceeded to pass my head around for everyone to check it out–with my body still attached, of course.  Did I mention that a day with my family can be really hard on a girl’s self-esteem?

The highlight, however was discovering that my grandfather, who has been dead since ’95, received a letter from the government asking him to pay non-resident tax .  Yup, I guess he really is no longer a resident.

Yes, my gene pool may have been put through the blender, but it is the only gene pool I know–and I am particularly fond of it.  Even if my aunt eats fire in my backyard and my uncle goes grocery shopping covered in freshly slaughtered chicken blood and my other uncle keeps driving in to things.  We’re an entertaining lot.  And proud of it.

1.  One of my strange traits that I blame on my blood relations is my need to put eyes on everything.  I know.  I’ve discussed this before.  I currently have temporary eyes and a nose on my Ikea Poang chair, a hat on my water cooler, and googly eyes on a lampshade.  And I love to draw faces on fingers.  It turns out that this gene is not limited to my family  tree.  In fact, one individual dedicates hours to his finger faces, putting my simple “two dots + one line=face” creations to shame.

Dito Von Tease began creating finger people when he/she? tried to create a Facebook avatar.  Dito obviously showed a talent for detailed digits.  Here are a few examples that will make you ooooh and ahhhh.

2)  I also inherited the need to play with my food.  No, I don’t build forts out of my mashed potatoes, but I have a definite OCD method of consuming each meal.  Pizza–I hate tomato sauce, so I only like “light on the sauce” pizza.  Plus, it’s much less messy to dissect.  I save the bloated crust end until second last because it’s yummy.  And I always save a sauce-free piece of the melted cheese (usually where a pepperoni slice has been) for the very last.  Yum.

Any peanut butter-filled chocolate bar like Wunderbar or Oh Henry Peanut Butter requires me to eat the outside chocolate first–round and round like a beaver removing bark.  The heavenly peanut butter middle is exposed and saved for last.

A cheeseburger.  Save a big clump of cheese til the end.  Salad.  Eat the croutons last.  Spaghetti.  Hardly any tomato sauce.  Ick.  Eat all the veggies out first.  Then eat the noodles.  Try to save some big meat lumps  for last.  Sandwiches.  Never cut them in half.  Eat the whole outer edge and save the filling-stuffed, squishy-breaded middle for last.  I wasn’t joking when I said OCD.  I never joke about OCD.

Again, it turns out that “playing with one’s food” is not always a by-product of a family tree with no branches.  Hehe.  It can be a sign of true genius (although I still haven’t found anything to prove this theory).  It can also result from buying too much bread–not a sign of genius.

Studio Rygalik, a Polish design team, created these Baguette Tables as a statement on mass consumption–I don’t get it at all by the way.  But, then again, I’m not too bright.  How does wasting perfectly good French loaves teach us not to waste perfectly good French loaves?  “Ugh,” she moans as she grabs her head and says, “I just gave myself a circular conversation OCD headache.”

I think their sense of style is a little stale.  The whole look is crummy.  And it probably costs a whole lot of dough.

I’ve been getting pun lessons from Barry Weiss.

3)  One good thing about my genetic material is that it makes for good eyesight.  There is a distinct absence of eyeglasses in our family photos.  There may be an over-abundance of short people, receding hairlines, and large snouts–but we can spot dimes from a mile away.  Which led me to wonder which one of my eyes is dominant.  Yes, we each have a dominant eye.

“This isn’t my dominant eye?”

I used to work in a shoe store–many moons ago.  And I learned a very interesting fact that sounds like an old wives’ tale, but actually proved to be true.  The foot opposite to your writing hand is always the big foot.  Yup, righties have big left feet.  And south paws have massive right feet.  Anywho, back to eyeballs.

Here is Wikipedia’s advice for finding out which eye is your dominant one:

1. The Miles test. The observer extends both arms, brings both hands together to create a small opening, then with both eyes open views a distant object through the opening. The observer then alternates closing the eyes or slowly draws opening back to the head to determine which eye is viewing the object (i.e. the dominant eye).
2. The Porta test. The observer extends one arm, then with both eyes open aligns the thumb or index finger with a distant object. The observer then alternates closing the eyes or slowly draws the thumb/finger back to the head to determine which eye is viewing the object (i.e. the dominant eye) .

My right eye is the winner.  But I like having my left eye around too.  I’m not picking any favourites.

Which eye is the boss of your face?

Photo Credits:  Bunny http://pinterest.com/pin/392657661231355560/, All finger faces by Dito Von Tease at http://ditology.blogspot.ca/, bread tables http://www.archieli.com/design/play-with-your-food-baguette-tables-by-studio-rygalik/, http://monster.wikia.com/wiki/Mike_Wazowski?file=Mike-Wazowski2.jpg.