The Best Part About the Annual Get-Together Is That It's Now Roughly A Year Away

Ah, what a wonderful weekend. This year, the annual get-together was not held in a MetroPark. A first, as far as I know, but hardly a necessity since so many of us have been growing up and growing away. Like my brother who's gone to California. Like my cousins who've moved to New York. Or my uncle who's announced he's getting divorced and moving to Seattle. Still reeling a bit from that one. Child of divorce myself but the rest of my parent's siblings seemed to be content not only with their lives but their spouses. They seemed so happy when we saw them just a few months ago, hard to believe it's happened. But that's some old family news, bubbling to the surface by a juggled guest list. Instead of a placid afternoon in the wanning days of summer spent amongst the trees and walkways of Kensington, we instead descended on the home of yet another cousin (Don't worry, I have, like, twenty, even I can't keep track.) for a day of grilling and chilling within the boundaries of Detroit. Getting to the Cass Corridor is a bit of a trek for some of the clan but not much since I stopped at my mother who lives in a nearby suburb.

My cousin's place is the kind of beautiful old home that makes you ache for the Detroit of yesteryear. A Victorian-era split level with the kind of workmanship and charm you just don't see these days, separated into a few apartments suited for the nearby university population. It's in the midtown region, just off that triangle formed by Wayne State and the museums. It features a huge yard that's been partly given over to an impressive garden. The house across the way had beehives to make their own honey. The next street over is a newly constructed subdivision of factory formed houses. Pretty close to the rotting husk that is Tiger's Stadium, too, which is always as interesting as it is depressing to see. But I was more interested in the progress of the permanent casinos.

It's a long, complicated story but, basically, about ten years ago the city legalized gambling, somewhat, and allowed three casinos to set up shop. They were supposed to open up temporary homes while more permanent fixtures with hotels and more. These places spent millions fixing up or refurbishing old buildings for those temporary homes. Now (About a few years too late to get the benefits from a SuperBowl in their backyard, of course, because if you can't shoot yourself in the foot it just wouldn't be the Motor City.) they're finally ready to move into those permanent structures they've been building the past few years.

My cousin's house is just down the street from the new Motor City Casino's home. It's...well, I hear it lights up in neon lights and you have to applaud the ambitions but it's still the ugliest thing I've seen in a while. Here, not the best picture of it but an awesome picture I found on Flickr but, unfortunately, can't swipe.

Looks more like an airport stuck on top of a high rise than anything else. Although you can't see it in the picture, just barely, I got a look at the new MGM, too, which looks a bit more palatable but still really out of place next the to DTE complex you can see where my mom works. That behemoth cost her a parking spot but earned her a year's worth of free buffets so it all works out.

Speaking of high-rises it's also near the Brewster-Douglas projects. That's where Lily Thomlin, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, and more grew up, by the way. Most of them are gone now, replaced by those psuedo-suburban tracts but a few towers still rise into the sky. A reminder, like the heavy locks on the door, that things are far from rosy. Because just a few houses down from my cousin's meticulously maintained, chicly appointed outfit, was a similar looking house. Just one that was boarded over, the windows and doors replaced with plywood. Abandoned. Just one more piece of the blight that surrounds the oases like my cousin's.

Still, it was a nice afternoon. My Sino-Indian ribs, coated with a melange of all-spice and caradmon and brown sugar and more. They're recognizably barbaque-y, flavored with smoke and sweet and savory, but still completely different from ribs slathered with the old mesquite from the bottle. As I was in charge of the proteins, I also brought along a selection of burgers, most store bought (I'm doing a lot of things, but staying up late to crank out thirty hamburger patties is not one of them.). An assortment ranging from plain old ground round for the unadventurous, to turkey burgers, and even some veggie burgers for the vegans in the crowd. I also made some of my, now famous, gormet burgers, with some spices and chunks of blue cheese mixed into the blend of different meats. Those were just awesome topped with home grown lettuce and tomatos. I brought way too much, though, and I'm now going to be eating burgers for the rest of the week.

My grandmother broke out the photo albums. Gifts were exchanged. We managed to catch most of the football game by running an extension cord out from a second story window to a little 13-inch black and white with rabbit ears. The reception would blur whenever anyone walked near it. That might sound bad but you have to keep in mind, this was done by the same uncle who brought an adapter and said extension cord to run off of his car's cigarette lighter so we wouldn't have to miss the game. I made off with a wickedly hot chile plucked fresh from the earth that morning.

It was a nice, in so many words. But now, more than ever, I'm ready to get moving. Nothing like your relatives asking you, "So, what are you doing with yourself?" to get you motivated.