Probably my favorite tradition amongst my husband's family are the family card games. These take place on Wednesday nights, Friday nights and some Saturday afternoons and are a very serious business. They play a Russian version of Gin Rummy where you pay for cards and the person with the lowest total points at the end of 6 hands wins the pot. Points are awarded by the value of the cards left in your hand when someone goes out. Points are deducted from your total if you are the first to go out. Beer and vodka flow freely, as do insults, threats of bodily harm and death (not actual death, just threats of death). The walls practically shake when someone gets Cunt (Gin) and the other players get stuck with a particularly large hand. Angry Russian can be heard for miles usually followed with uproarious laughter.
The first time I met (or perhaps, as you will see in a moment, I should say SAW) my In-laws, my husband and I were barely dating. We were going somewhere or another one night and he had to drop by his house to pick up something. I had been to his house before once or twice when his family wasn't home and so I went with him this time expecting an empty house again. Unbeknownst to me it was a family card night. As we were walking up the three flights of stairs to his apartment you could hear what sounded like a fairly boisterous party coming from somewhere in the building. It was somewhat late at night and I assumed it was some teenagers somewhere having a few drinks with their friends. My husband (then date) opened the door to the apartment just as a game finished in uproar. I peered through the door and could just see into the living room where all hell was breaking loose. Cards were flying, fists were shaking, it was mayhem... Next thing my husband knows I am high tailing it down the stairs like the devil himself was after me. I was not sure what sort of craziness I had stepped up into, but I sure as hell wasn't about to find out!! It took months before he could convince me to go back again and meet the family for real.
In all seriousness though, family card night is now one of my favorite things. I beg my husband to go over to his parents so that we can play. It took me months of sitting and watching them play to pick up the game. Finally it was decided that I had sufficiently learned the game and I was allowed a spot at the table. At this point I had married my husband and was pregnant with our baby. I also seemed to have a good run of beginners luck. After winning several games and taking most of the final pots, all niceties were dropped and I too became the subject of their rage. My Mother in law told me more than once that if I were not pregnant she would kill me. Though she said it with a smile, I am still to this day not sure if she was kidding...
It is a bit of a family joke now that the baby is born that I go over there, prop the baby up on a pillow, latch him to my breast so that he can nurse, and pick up my cards. More than once he is lulled to sleep with specific instructions from his Aunt that "Mommy, Auntie, Babka (my MIL's twin sister) and Babushka (MIL) want to play cards.. You be good boy and sleep." This results in one of two possible outcomes. Baby is either a good boy and sleeps, or decides it is much more amusing to stay up and play. The following could be a scene straight out of a movie. The baby is passed from one person to another, each one vying for there turn, somehow convinced that THEY will be able to get the baby to sleep. He takes greatjoy in all of the attention with no desire what so ever to close his eyes. Russian lullabies are sung by three different voices, I look on in amusement as clothes are adjusted, socks pulled up, bibs put on and taken off (depending on who is holding him), and blankets pilled on 15 deep (there is a great fear of my baby freezing to death in the middle of the Israeli summer). Finally when the game gets to intense, the baby is placed in the stroller and they take turns rocking the stroller back and forth with their feet, the game never slowing.
Every now and then my FIL will make the brave attempt to take a turn with his grandson. He will come in and gently pick up the baby, cradling him in his arms and singing to him "Heeeeyyy Judeeeee, da da da daaaa" and "Caaal-eee-fooorn-yaaaa" (his version of Hotel California). It melts my heart every time. It also cues my MIL and her Sister to pounce on him like mother hens clucking and pecking and fussing over everything from the way he is holding the baby to the fact that the blanket has slipped a millimeter to reveal the tiniest strip of skin. That is of course until I get Cunt...Then baby is forgotten and the death threats begin....
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