(His latest development: we were at dinner with a friend, who lent him her mobile phone. After playing with the buttons and turning on the lights, he put it up to his ear - upside down - and started merrily burbling away. Lovely Boo.)

::melts::

PC - good luck and ~ma to your brother. And to his girlfriend, who sounds pretty darn cool.

I have two recommenders out of three - yay! BITE ME person who made me feel awful yesterday. Now to work on the third.

OMG, you didn't tell us that your bother had a secret shedevil girlfriend!!! He was LIVING with her and keeping her secret?!? That's crazy.

Billy - wait until he's older and can actually work the phone.

Or do what my nephew did the other day --Mom put the phone to his ear so I could talk to him, and he grabbed and went off running chanting "Mine! Mine!" I could hear mom in the back ground "Can you bring Nina the phone?"

I was cracking up but hoping he could hear me I was telling him "E you're such a good boy! Can you take Nina the phone? Go to Nina !"

PC I'm sorry about what happened with your brother.

Holy crap, PC. No wonder he's supportive about the grief you get from them.

I hope it works out, for both of you (and the white she-devil).

Good luck to you and your brother, P-C.

Yipes! I hope the fallout isn't too bad, P-C.

<unhelpful>Dude, this is awesome. Now you can marry a nice Gujarati girl that you meet yourself and you will not be nearly as bad as your brother!</unhelpful> In all seriousness, I wish your family luck in going through all this.
 
Mine went through the Japanese equivalent, but luckily for me it happened in my generation but I am the youngest of all my cousins. So by the time I was dating my first boyfriend (black) or my long distance boyfriend (Hispanic) or my husband to be (Caucasian) it was no big deal. I always told my parents I would be happy to date a nice Japanese boy, only I`d never met one that wasn`t my cousin and this was not my fault.

Yikes, P-C.

Re: the kid thing.

This is actually one of the many parts of what I've been struggling so hard with over the last year.

I have recently begun to feel like my window for ever having any kind of a family has closed. I'm glad I don't have kids now, because I've never gotten my shit together quite enough - I wouldn't have been able to handle it before now.

But to some degree, I wanted the possibility there.

And frankly, it's been very very difficult to not feel like my window of finding any kind of long term relationship has closed as well.

I think the lesson is don't hide it . it will be a mess no matter what, so just do it.

And if my boyfriend wasn't willing to admit I was his girlfriend to his parents ( that he was in contact with ) , I wouldn't be living with him. Man up, don't make me live in the middle of the explosion.

Good luck, P-C. Maybe once it's all out in the open and the world doesn't end, your parents will be a little less rigid. Could happen.

That used furniture store sounds like kind of a nifty idea, Hil. Hooray rocking chair!