Franklinsanity

6:15 PM, New Britain, CT:  it seems unlikely, but I think I was jet-lagged until right around now.  Which is terminologically inaccurate, given that I haven’t been on a plane in weeks.  But to borrow William Gibson’s motif in Pattern Recognition, my soul was somewhere several states behind, tethered to me but not really here, until sometime after lunchtime today.

Or maybe the Sauvignon Blanc at dinner last night just didn’t agree with me.

Still, everyone in the family seemed a little out of sorts.

Quinn sprayed Awesome Wife in the face with one of those giant pool water-gun syringes, during dinner (breaking about 50 Franklin dinner rules, not to mention defying common sense and self-preservation).  Awesome Wife became Deeply Outraged Wife, and threw Quinn into the pool with her clothes on.

Quinn took this in stride, and surfaced laughing.  Teddy, not so much.  He decided he needed to protect his sister – so he got up from the table and ran over to Kelly and punched her in the stomach.

Seriously, I swear this isn’t remotely common behavior.  Like I said, everyone was a little off.

Kelly threw Ted in the pool too.  Ted climbed out of the pool literally shaking with rage and announced he hated Kelly.

It was around this time that the white wine stopped being refreshing.

This is NOT preferred behavior for the grandparents, or for Uncle Sean’s girlfriend, meeting our branch of the family for the first time.  I hustled the kids into the house and Ga’s spa-level shower before further mayhem could ensue.  I told Q&T they got off way easy, while remembering the time I focused a magnifying glass on my mom’s foot at Point O’Woods.  That really didn’t go over well.

However, we all recovered nicely – kids were clearly exhausted and passed out.  Alleged grownups all watched the Kingsman – ridiculous but diverting movie – and also retired.

Car-lag.  It’s real, people.  Awful name, though.  Jet-lag sounds glamorous.  “Jet” is a great word.  But that “…ar-lag” combo is just ugly.  Auto-lag?  That sounds dirty.  I’m open to suggestions.  Anyway, no one got punitively thrown into the pool today, so that’s a win!