Life Under a Mushroom Cloud!

Life under a mushroom cloud is sometimes nuclear. I can only hope that the fallout of trying to balance family and friends, wait, I'm only balancing family right now, will not be too deadly. We are having the whole Oliver clan-14 people-for dinner on Sat. night. Then Sunday, the whole Scott clan for lunch and family pictures-17 people-
Jake flew in last night to Memphis and his friend will transport him here on her way to Mountain Home to see her family for Labor Day. Sach and Codi are leaving Bentonville after they get off work today. They will stop in Harrison and pick up Tanner.
It was so easy when everyone had small kids. Popsicles and movie rentals, bikes and horses. Now so many of the family is grown up and now you have differing life views, differing political views, differing incomes, etc.
Everyone is anxious to see Jake. He made a vow last Labor Day-2007-that he would not be home until he had lost 100 pounds. He has now lost 120 pounds sticking strictly to the Weight Watchers plan. So it's been 1 year since most of the family has seen him. I'll be able to post pics of him now, I guess. He made me promise not to until he met his goal weight.
Are you watching the projected path of Hurricane Gustav? I think we will be driving in rain when we leave on Tuesday for Florida.
So back to the topic of family. Is anyone out there sympathetic to the dilemma of trying to survive in the quaqmire of "I used to know a lot about this person" When you think about it, our perceptions of siblings and parents are frozen right at the time that you stop living together. Then you start to have experiences and shit happens that you don't see on a daily basis. When you only see someone for a total of maybe 20 hours a year, that is not "knowing" that individual. You can have a better sense of what email and blog friends are doing than you can of family. As a matter of fact, most of us are "closer" factually, and thought wise, to co-workers and those we communicate with in detail than we may be to those we share blood with.
Facebook-another thought-I love this aspect of it takes a village. Those who participate can see pics and read thoughts and stop by conversations of friends and acquaintances from all over the globe. I have had hour long chats with former students who now check in with me daily. You can take a hint from status updates that something is off in someone's life, and check up on them right away. Facebook develops community, and projects daily life onto the big screen of the web. I am horrible about sending or participating in any of the games, but I write and tell my peeps this-they know this and still send funnies my way!
Well, I just really stopped by here to make a post and ended up running away with it..
later