Myn Famylje
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Category:
Romance › General
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
1
Views:
809
Reviews:
2
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
Myn Famylje
Myn Famylje
A/N: This is based VERY loosely on my own Frisian family and my love/hate relationship with all things Fries. If anyone in my family ever stumbles across this--no one here is based on you.
Much.
Chapter One: Ik bin idioat.
My grandmother knocked on the door, four insistent raps. I glared blearily at the clock: six in the morning. The woman was twisted, I decided. It was still dark out, I was on my winter break, and I should, by all rights, still be sleeping for another four hours.
“Wat, Beppe?” I asked, irritated. Morning is not my most pleasant time. It usually takes about fifteen minutes for the duvel, the devil in me, to settle down to the point that I’m fit to be in public.
“It is time for moarnsiten, Katie. Get up and eat or your eggs will be cold,” came the muffled reply from beyond the door.
“Ja, ja. I’m coming,” I muttered as I dragged myself from the warmth of my bed. Somehow, I always managed to forget that days at Beppe and Pake’s house started early. I think it’s the only reason I ever agreed to spend the holidays here in the first place. To think that I had turned down the offer to go to Florida with my roommate and her family in favor of cold, muddy Wisconsin with my Family.
Somehow, that word always sounds capitalized at Beppe and Pake’s. Not family, but Family, a force to be reckoned with. Or, as it’s more frequently pronounced in this house, Famylje. They were fiercely proud of their heritage, my grandparents. People quickly learned never to simply label them simply Dutch. Oh, no; they were Frisian, and you had better never make the mistake again.
For those of you who don’t know—and that will probably be all of you—Friesland is a province in the Netherlands. The Frisian people were originally a powerful Germanic tribe, with surprisingly early democratic tendencies. Of course, that only lasted till Charlemagne came along with empire and Christianity. Eventually the Netherlands got ahold of them, and Friesland became Dutch. The language itself was dying—less than half a million people spoke it now—but it had a strong hold on my family. Beppe and Pake had immigrated to Wisconsin after World War II, and they still spoke Frysk as their first language. They may have been expatriates, but their hearts remained across the ocean.
I always admired them their devotion—except at six in the morning. Okay, maybe even that’s an overstatement. It wasn’t that I hated their pride, it could just be, well, a little overwhelming. And since I had grown up in the next town over, I had had plenty of time to become accustomed to it. I didn’t dare think about how Aidan would react when he came later in the week.
Aidan, you should probably know, is my boyfriend. We met in a gender lit class at college. I thought at first he must be gay, since he dresses really nice and has good manners and was in a gender lit class. Turns out, though, he’s an English major, and he took the class to appease his militantly feminist sister. He was going to be spending the week and a half between Christmas Eve and New Year’s with the Halbertsma Famylje. I don’t think he knew what he was getting himself into when he agreed, personally. He’d better hope he didn’t know what he was getting me into when he agreed.
Beppe, that sneak, had gotten his phone number on campus from my mother, who is also a sneak even though she’s only three-quarters Freis, who had found it while snooping in my cell phone. So, poor Aidan had gotten a phone call from Beppe at eight-thirty on a Saturday morning, asking if he would find it in his heart to convince his girlfriend (that would be me) to go to her Pake’s house for Christmas before he died, and of course he (Aidan, not Pake) was invited to spend the holidays as well.
This all meant that Aidan came rushing into my room (just down the hall, which I have to admit is handy—but don’t tell the Famylje!) to scold me for wanting to jet away to Florida with Teresa when my grandfather was dying—at eight-thirty-seven in the morning. I’m afraid the duvel in me woke up first and called him a few choice names before whatever nice part of me finally gained consciousness. I explained somewhat testily that every time Beppe wants me to come to the house, she says it is for Pake, who apparently has been dying ever since I got my driver’s license. Aidan, of course, was relieved to hear that there was no impending death in the family, but still insisted that we go. This was a terrible manipulation on his part, since he knew that I can’t think straight for those minutes before my shower and coffee. Obviously, I said, “Okay, yeah, whatever,” grunted, and rolled over to slip into sleep again.
When I was finally truly awake later that afternoon, and discovered what he had tricked me into, my duvel didn’t say any choice words at all. No, that time it was all me.
Reassured that whatever happened once he arrived two days hence was his own fault, I pulled on some sweatpants and a sweatshirt over my pajamas and dragged my sorry self down to the kitchen, sitting where I had always sat—at the kids’ table. Somehow, even though I was twenty-one now, I had never been promoted to the grown-up table. I think it was Beppe’s way of getting back at me for not being married yet at that ripe old age. She and Muoike Helen and Muoike Betty were always on my case, too, for not doing my Frisian duty by marrying a good Frisian boy, or at least a Dutch boy, and making lots of Frysk-speaking babies. I could handle Beppe and the aunts, but Mom had joined the bandwagon for this holiday season, and they were all driving me batty. Actually, I was mostly terrified that they wouldn’t stop once Aidan arrived. Jesus. The last thing a girl wants her guy to hear is how her family expects him to make babies with her. It seems to make a guy feel a little bit in the hot seat, you know? Or is my family really the only one that tortures me this way? I had told them repeatedly over the years that I was never having kids, but they were completely unwavering. Apparently, a little thing called medical documentation does not count as an acceptable excuse in the Halbertsma household. I had given up trying to convince them that it was just never going to happen and settled for praying that they would let the subject drop.
Well, actually, at that exact moment I was content to shovel eggs and bacon down my throat and think longingly of some uninterrupted shower time, a real luxury at Beppe and Pake\'s house around Christmas. The whole clan was currently shoved into the house: Beppe and Pake, of course, Muoike Helen and her husband Omke Jerry and their four kids (two had spouses and kids of their own, also present), Muoike Betty and Omke Johnny and their six kids (five of whom had families here as well), Mom and Dad, my brother J.J. and his fiancée Denise (and Denise’s seven-month pregnant belly), and me. And Aidan, once he arrived. Needless to say, the kitchen was a little crowded. Beppe was still cooking for the latecomers like me, while Muoike Betty served the bacon and my married cousin Margaret poured milk.
“It’s whole, just out of the machine,” she said as she poured me a big glass without asking.
“Thanks, Maggie, but you know I can’t drink this, right?”
She made a scoffing sound. “What’s better for you?”
“I’m lactose intolerant. Just about anything,” I said.
“Well, someone obviously got up on the wrong side of the bed, didn’t she?” she chirped, using my spoon to stir the milk, which had already separated. She was looking pert in a coral sweater and freaking pearls. I clenched my teeth, resisted the urge to smooth my hair, which I hadn\'t taken the time to brush, and said nothing. I could sneak the milk out to the dog while no one was looking.
I shoveled away my meal, but I had been late down; by the time I finished, the kitchen was almost empty but for the women bustling around, cleaning up and getting in each other’s way. I set my fork down, complimented Beppe, and fled to my room.
It wasn’t really my room—I shared it with two unmarried cousins and Denise. Denise and I shared the bed, while Emily had a cot on the floor. Poor Carrie had to settle for a sleeping bag. She was the youngest at fifteen, so, well, it sucked to be her, didn’t it? Emily was two years younger than I was, and we got along fairly well. At that moment, though, I wanted to be alone, so when I tromped upstairs and found her sitting on the bed, flipping through an old issue of Cosmopolitan, which Pake must not have known she had here, I just growled, grabbed my coat, and headed back the way I’d come.
I tried to pass inconspicuously through the kitchen, but Mom saw me with that eye in the back of her head.
“Wat, Katie? You aren’t staying to help clean up?” she asked. I was surprised that she sounded surprised. I had studiously avoided doing my feminine duty of kitchen clean-up since the time I was big enough to hold a stack of dirty dishes.
“Nee, I’m not,” I said agreeably, and headed out to the general displeasure of all womenfolk present.
As I walked aimlessly beside the road that fronted the farm, I mentally cursed Aidan for getting me into this, and longed for the Florida sun. Lord preserve me, the holidays couldn\'t pass quickly enough.
10/28/05
A/N: I know, I know. No new chapter. I hate it when people update without adding a chapter, and here I\'ve gone and done it myself. Well, I decided that the second chapter sucked, so I deleted it. In fact, I\'m really not sure I like the direction of this story at all. I think I\'ll discontinue it, unless I get reviews requesting otherwise.
A/N: This is based VERY loosely on my own Frisian family and my love/hate relationship with all things Fries. If anyone in my family ever stumbles across this--no one here is based on you.
Much.
Chapter One: Ik bin idioat.
My grandmother knocked on the door, four insistent raps. I glared blearily at the clock: six in the morning. The woman was twisted, I decided. It was still dark out, I was on my winter break, and I should, by all rights, still be sleeping for another four hours.
“Wat, Beppe?” I asked, irritated. Morning is not my most pleasant time. It usually takes about fifteen minutes for the duvel, the devil in me, to settle down to the point that I’m fit to be in public.
“It is time for moarnsiten, Katie. Get up and eat or your eggs will be cold,” came the muffled reply from beyond the door.
“Ja, ja. I’m coming,” I muttered as I dragged myself from the warmth of my bed. Somehow, I always managed to forget that days at Beppe and Pake’s house started early. I think it’s the only reason I ever agreed to spend the holidays here in the first place. To think that I had turned down the offer to go to Florida with my roommate and her family in favor of cold, muddy Wisconsin with my Family.
Somehow, that word always sounds capitalized at Beppe and Pake’s. Not family, but Family, a force to be reckoned with. Or, as it’s more frequently pronounced in this house, Famylje. They were fiercely proud of their heritage, my grandparents. People quickly learned never to simply label them simply Dutch. Oh, no; they were Frisian, and you had better never make the mistake again.
For those of you who don’t know—and that will probably be all of you—Friesland is a province in the Netherlands. The Frisian people were originally a powerful Germanic tribe, with surprisingly early democratic tendencies. Of course, that only lasted till Charlemagne came along with empire and Christianity. Eventually the Netherlands got ahold of them, and Friesland became Dutch. The language itself was dying—less than half a million people spoke it now—but it had a strong hold on my family. Beppe and Pake had immigrated to Wisconsin after World War II, and they still spoke Frysk as their first language. They may have been expatriates, but their hearts remained across the ocean.
I always admired them their devotion—except at six in the morning. Okay, maybe even that’s an overstatement. It wasn’t that I hated their pride, it could just be, well, a little overwhelming. And since I had grown up in the next town over, I had had plenty of time to become accustomed to it. I didn’t dare think about how Aidan would react when he came later in the week.
Aidan, you should probably know, is my boyfriend. We met in a gender lit class at college. I thought at first he must be gay, since he dresses really nice and has good manners and was in a gender lit class. Turns out, though, he’s an English major, and he took the class to appease his militantly feminist sister. He was going to be spending the week and a half between Christmas Eve and New Year’s with the Halbertsma Famylje. I don’t think he knew what he was getting himself into when he agreed, personally. He’d better hope he didn’t know what he was getting me into when he agreed.
Beppe, that sneak, had gotten his phone number on campus from my mother, who is also a sneak even though she’s only three-quarters Freis, who had found it while snooping in my cell phone. So, poor Aidan had gotten a phone call from Beppe at eight-thirty on a Saturday morning, asking if he would find it in his heart to convince his girlfriend (that would be me) to go to her Pake’s house for Christmas before he died, and of course he (Aidan, not Pake) was invited to spend the holidays as well.
This all meant that Aidan came rushing into my room (just down the hall, which I have to admit is handy—but don’t tell the Famylje!) to scold me for wanting to jet away to Florida with Teresa when my grandfather was dying—at eight-thirty-seven in the morning. I’m afraid the duvel in me woke up first and called him a few choice names before whatever nice part of me finally gained consciousness. I explained somewhat testily that every time Beppe wants me to come to the house, she says it is for Pake, who apparently has been dying ever since I got my driver’s license. Aidan, of course, was relieved to hear that there was no impending death in the family, but still insisted that we go. This was a terrible manipulation on his part, since he knew that I can’t think straight for those minutes before my shower and coffee. Obviously, I said, “Okay, yeah, whatever,” grunted, and rolled over to slip into sleep again.
When I was finally truly awake later that afternoon, and discovered what he had tricked me into, my duvel didn’t say any choice words at all. No, that time it was all me.
Reassured that whatever happened once he arrived two days hence was his own fault, I pulled on some sweatpants and a sweatshirt over my pajamas and dragged my sorry self down to the kitchen, sitting where I had always sat—at the kids’ table. Somehow, even though I was twenty-one now, I had never been promoted to the grown-up table. I think it was Beppe’s way of getting back at me for not being married yet at that ripe old age. She and Muoike Helen and Muoike Betty were always on my case, too, for not doing my Frisian duty by marrying a good Frisian boy, or at least a Dutch boy, and making lots of Frysk-speaking babies. I could handle Beppe and the aunts, but Mom had joined the bandwagon for this holiday season, and they were all driving me batty. Actually, I was mostly terrified that they wouldn’t stop once Aidan arrived. Jesus. The last thing a girl wants her guy to hear is how her family expects him to make babies with her. It seems to make a guy feel a little bit in the hot seat, you know? Or is my family really the only one that tortures me this way? I had told them repeatedly over the years that I was never having kids, but they were completely unwavering. Apparently, a little thing called medical documentation does not count as an acceptable excuse in the Halbertsma household. I had given up trying to convince them that it was just never going to happen and settled for praying that they would let the subject drop.
Well, actually, at that exact moment I was content to shovel eggs and bacon down my throat and think longingly of some uninterrupted shower time, a real luxury at Beppe and Pake\'s house around Christmas. The whole clan was currently shoved into the house: Beppe and Pake, of course, Muoike Helen and her husband Omke Jerry and their four kids (two had spouses and kids of their own, also present), Muoike Betty and Omke Johnny and their six kids (five of whom had families here as well), Mom and Dad, my brother J.J. and his fiancée Denise (and Denise’s seven-month pregnant belly), and me. And Aidan, once he arrived. Needless to say, the kitchen was a little crowded. Beppe was still cooking for the latecomers like me, while Muoike Betty served the bacon and my married cousin Margaret poured milk.
“It’s whole, just out of the machine,” she said as she poured me a big glass without asking.
“Thanks, Maggie, but you know I can’t drink this, right?”
She made a scoffing sound. “What’s better for you?”
“I’m lactose intolerant. Just about anything,” I said.
“Well, someone obviously got up on the wrong side of the bed, didn’t she?” she chirped, using my spoon to stir the milk, which had already separated. She was looking pert in a coral sweater and freaking pearls. I clenched my teeth, resisted the urge to smooth my hair, which I hadn\'t taken the time to brush, and said nothing. I could sneak the milk out to the dog while no one was looking.
I shoveled away my meal, but I had been late down; by the time I finished, the kitchen was almost empty but for the women bustling around, cleaning up and getting in each other’s way. I set my fork down, complimented Beppe, and fled to my room.
It wasn’t really my room—I shared it with two unmarried cousins and Denise. Denise and I shared the bed, while Emily had a cot on the floor. Poor Carrie had to settle for a sleeping bag. She was the youngest at fifteen, so, well, it sucked to be her, didn’t it? Emily was two years younger than I was, and we got along fairly well. At that moment, though, I wanted to be alone, so when I tromped upstairs and found her sitting on the bed, flipping through an old issue of Cosmopolitan, which Pake must not have known she had here, I just growled, grabbed my coat, and headed back the way I’d come.
I tried to pass inconspicuously through the kitchen, but Mom saw me with that eye in the back of her head.
“Wat, Katie? You aren’t staying to help clean up?” she asked. I was surprised that she sounded surprised. I had studiously avoided doing my feminine duty of kitchen clean-up since the time I was big enough to hold a stack of dirty dishes.
“Nee, I’m not,” I said agreeably, and headed out to the general displeasure of all womenfolk present.
As I walked aimlessly beside the road that fronted the farm, I mentally cursed Aidan for getting me into this, and longed for the Florida sun. Lord preserve me, the holidays couldn\'t pass quickly enough.
10/28/05
A/N: I know, I know. No new chapter. I hate it when people update without adding a chapter, and here I\'ve gone and done it myself. Well, I decided that the second chapter sucked, so I deleted it. In fact, I\'m really not sure I like the direction of this story at all. I think I\'ll discontinue it, unless I get reviews requesting otherwise.