{"id":722,"date":"2010-11-14T01:44:13","date_gmt":"2010-11-14T07:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/?p=722"},"modified":"2010-11-16T13:03:26","modified_gmt":"2010-11-16T19:03:26","slug":"relatively-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"Relatively Speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"
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14. A photo of one of your relatives. 10\/8\/79. Gerald and mom playing Clue.<\/p><\/div>\n

It says “one of your relatives” but here are two of them. This is cousin Gerry playing Clue with my mom. What you don’t know about my mom is that she was the Clue champion. Nobody could beat her. This photo is amazing because it absolutely captures how Mom played the game. She was relentless. She looks like she’s actually interrogating Gerry. “We have your buddy Professor Plum in the other room, and he left you high and dry! He told us all about how you did it with the rope in the Ballroom. ”<\/p>\n

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14. A photo of one of your relatives. Undated. (Grandaddy) Paul & (Uncle) Paul. <\/p><\/div>\n

And looking through all these photos, I found this one as well. I think it’s an absolute fantastic father & son moment. I suppose part of this photo-a-day thing is picking the one photo you want to represent each of the days, but hell, I just love the stories each of these pictures tells….<\/p>\n

Word count: 28,044.<\/p>\n

Here’s an excerpt. Paul & Arthur are still at the faux-Irish bar (Paddy O’Irish). Arthur’s favorite Cola employees (Cheryl, Tammy, Kelly) are there as well. Charming as ever, Arthur has once again raised their ire…. This whole bar scene was written just so that I could have Arthur say the very last line. This is how far I’ll go for a joke.<\/p>\n

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Kelly was out of her chair faster than I thought was humanly possible. Her hands flew towards my throat. I instinctively jumped back, but she was a woman on a mission. She was just about to wrap her hands around my neck when, fortunately for me, Paul stepped in between us. He managed to separate Kelly from me and make her take a few steps back.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Come on, Kelly,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, using the voice I recognized as the one he used to defuse potential explosive situations at home. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You know he was just messing about.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Kelly was still seeing red and was not hearing a word Paul said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That fucking asshole.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Paul persisted. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kelly. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Arthur. He does this. He can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s true!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I offered. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Paul waved me off. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Go sit down,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he ordered. But his parental voice didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t work on me. I wanted to watch.<\/p>\n

Kelly did seem calmer. Her voice was so quiet that I could barely hear her when she said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to kill him.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

She sounded serious. I almost believed that she had it in her.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kelly, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not worth it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Paul said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Come on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Somehow, that had the desired effect. Kelly cast one more glare in my direction and then returned to her chair. It wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t until everyone started talking again that I realized that the crowd at the bar had gone silent as soon as Kelly had erupted. Now the world around us resumed. Paul put a firm hand on my shoulder and lead us back to our stools.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know any better, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d think you were trying to get fired. Or killed,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Did you mean it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mean what?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153When you said that I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t worth it. You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not worth it, do you?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It says “one of your relatives” but here are two of them. This is cousin Gerry playing Clue with my mom. What you don’t know about my mom is that she was the Clue champion. Nobody could beat her. This photo is amazing because it absolutely captures how Mom played the game. She was relentless. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,15],"tags":[257,16,256,230],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nanowrimo","category-photo","tag-aphotoaday","tag-excerpt","tag-relatives","tag-word-count"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.illinoir.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}