Culture Differences, "_______-brook," and the dentist.

Several things on the docket this week, and first up are my musings on culture differences. I grew up in a wonderful Italian-American subculture. For anyone unfamiliar with it, it is a family-centered, hug/kiss-tastic, high decibel experience. In most families I know, there is that one person who's overly opinionated, loud, and tactless... in an Italian family, everyone is like that (not a bad thing, you NEVER have to guess what anyone is thinking, and I find that reassuring). Currently, however, I live no where near my family, and instead find myself in a very different subculture. This new subculture is far more subdued and demure in its mannerisms. And there are certain days where it just rubs me the wrong way to have to constantly censure what I say/do for fear of offending pretty much everyone.

Story time- the first time my husband met my great uncle- my great uncle bear hugged him and kissed him on both cheeks. My husband, being forewarned, managed to not knee him in the nuts and press assault charges. Then the entire rest of my family in attendance at this particular event, proceeded to greet both my husband and I in this manner: bear hug with double cheek kisses. It's just how we do things. It's normal. (And lets not even talk about all the touches that go on in a conversation and how my family finds it physically impossible to not move their hands when they're talking- if someone happens to be holding a knife and talking at the same time it gets extra interesting)

And what I'm complaining of, on my inane rant, is that the subculture in which I find my self existing right now is not like this at all. While it's not wrong, it still feels unnatural (even after being a part of this new subculture for nearly 5 years now) to me to abstain from all the hugging and cheek kissing and general touchiness of my family of origin.

Moving on- We live in a great area- we see the police a lot. This week however, we were also blessed with the forensics unit. YAY... I couldn't pass up getting a picture of it.

Evy also went to the dentist this week. Another clean bill of health for her teeth. We actually really like her dentist, and so does Evy (!!). They were cool enough to take a picture of her and send it to us.

And lastly- the dog has a really hard life. Look at how miserable he looks just sprawled out on the stairs. Poor thing... guess we should just send him back to the pound.