party tricks

What better way to recover from several writing and presenting projects and reacquaint myself with my family than to attend the Retinoblastoma AZ Christmas party in Tucson? First, my father and I drove out to my sister's house, more than an hour away. Then we packed four adults (my father, my sister, my brother-in-law, and me) and two kids (niece, 6, and nephew, 3) into one vehicle, and headed south.

The party was held at the Knights of Columbus Hall. I had also arranged to meet with one of my advisers, who lives in Tucson, but I hadn't told him exactly what brought me to town. When I phoned him and told him where I was, he got very confused about what I was doing with the Knights of Columbus. "What exactly happened to you in the field?" he asked.

The party itself was a lot of fun, all things considered. (I was trying very hard not to go all anthropologist on the event, at least not out loud.) There were a lot of games for the kids, and presents galore -- to the extent that I wondered who the hell paid for them all and how. I held my nephew on my lap and spoon-fed him the frosting off a piece of cake as large as his head and then turned him loose. (I am a fabulous auntie.) My adviser arrived right before Santa, which afforded us the opportunity to escape. We went for a ramble along the wash and had a good thinking-together talk. Then my family picked me up and we drove back to my sister's house for pizza, beer and regional football.

It was great to see my adviser, who I haven't seen very often over the year. And it was really, really lovely to talk for a while with someone who's as concerned with anthropological theory as with the use of rifampicin to treat tumors. But the best moment of the day was when my car-and-truck-obsessed nephew, who is moment by moment making himself and being rather avidly made into a properly gendered subject, came toddling toward me sporting a five-inch-tall sparkly pink party crown. Aw, yeah.