24 jan

Let me write the praise of my mother in law. She arrived today. We picked her up at Bordeaux Airport where she was waiting for her luggage. Idly waiting, as one does when a suitcase has to transfer. Suitcases do not like transfers, and since this suitcase, coming from Omaha, first had to switch in Atlanta, then in Paris and then arrive safely in Bordeaux, chances were that something would go wrong. I would argue, in fact, that the chances that the suitcase would have arrived safely and timely are about the same as someone choosing the perfect bracket for the upcoming National College Basketball Tournament, which would win this person $1 billion. As we all could figure out those chances are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 possibilities. Warren Buffett has insured the risk someone would get the right bracket (guessing the results of 63 games right). I hope he will clarify how much money he received for that insurance. I guess it is not much.
The praise of my mother-in-law: She walks into Bordeaux like it is a good old friend. She notices that the weather is comparable to Nebraska and continues the conversation that was stopped a few years ago, when she left the last time from London, or the one from the last time we visited Bennington, which must have been october 2012.
It doesn’t really matter. There’s plenty of talk about with her rapidly expanding family. One of the ‘news’ items she brought today was that the family tree would reach 75 branches in the coming month. ‘The only question is if Joe (Maggie’s husband to be) or little Kevin (or little Elizabeth) will be the lucky one.’
My mother in law kept Omahans thin for most of the past fifty years. Having been there I should probably rephrase this by saying that Omahans would have been a lot heavier without the presence of my mother in law. She was a motivational speaker, as I am pretty sure they call it, for Weight Watchers. Her speeches were almost always stories about her family. The truth was stretched, as the truth should be in good stories. I know about this, because one can (could, mom retired a few years ago) not enter this Rezac family (I am number 32) without being mentioned in those speeches. Often I would talk to people who would ask me: Are you the Joost who’s married to Julie. These people would look funny at me. God knows what they thought they knew about me. They wouldn’t reveal these things. Some would say: ‘Your english is better than I expected.’ My mother-in-law would make her always hilarious stories pepper up with her imitation of the Schwarzenegger accent her son-in-law used.
Of all the good things about her, the best thing is her laugh, that sounds now crystal clear through the large rooms of Chassenat, a house that fits this majestic woman like a glove. I am very grateful for that laugh, partly because it was inherited by her daughter, who herself has handed it through to our daughter. It is a tradition worth preserving, hopefully also for the new number 75 in the family.