{"id":5135,"date":"2020-12-21T17:22:44","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T16:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5135"},"modified":"2022-11-01T06:31:19","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T05:31:19","slug":"a-zoom-family-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=5135","title":{"rendered":"A Zoom Family Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My brother floated the idea yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHey, I think I\u2019m going to set up a Zoom meeting for the family on Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGreat idea!\u201d I said as if I had mentioned in the previous text, which I had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlmost everyone is in. Even Danny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was big. My Uncle Danny has long been famous within the family for his iffy views on family get togethers. Sometimes he comes, sometimes he doesn\u2019t. Sometimes he comes and disappears without a trace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this time of year, I am usually heartened by the traditions that involve my visit home to my parents\u2019 house. At this point, I would have travelled through the airports with their Christmassy atmospheres and picked up a gift or two on the way if my layovers allowed. My parents would have picked me up at Philadelphia International a couple of days ago. My mom would have taken my cheesesteak order in the car on the way home and my dad and I would have played our countdown my trip game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, you have two more weeks.\u201d We count down like this until the day I leave. On the day I leave, tinged with mourning we count down the hours, supplanting it with \u201cOh, listen, we\u2019ll see you in the summer.\u201d    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d spend my time relaxing and watching football with my dad. We\u2019d go to Barnes and Noble the day before Christmas Eve, as per tradition, and buy books and sip 12,000-calorie coffee drinks. I\u2019d visit my brother for a night of tipsy debauchery; my liver would sue for separation. When Larry (my liver\u2019s name) had (partially) recovered, we\u2019d visit the Langhorne Hotel \u2013 my home away from home away from home. And I\u2019d be gearing up for a night of food and fun with my wild and zany family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Christmas Eve would be lovely and the impetus for a week of double doses of Xanax. The food could satisfy the U.S. Navy\u2019s eighth fleet. My aunts and mom shout conversations from two rooms away, almost by design. My uncle and dad plot the best route from their cozy armchair to the buffet and back to their cozy armchair. There are various factors that make this subterfuge difficult, if not unlikely. Still, they bide their time and roughly eighteen seconds after finishing second dinner they are reclined and asleep for a Christmas Eve slumber in the grand tradition of all Italian-American men, about seven feet away from a football game on TV. It\u2019s a remarkable act, but nothing close to Uncle Danny\u2019s yearly magic act.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uncle Danny possesses the distinct ability to slip away before anyone has noticed. In recent years, with the hopes of seeing how the magic happens, a young family member has been charged with watching his movements like a hawk. Invariably, however, at some point usually after second dinner or fourth dessert, someone is heard wondering aloud \u201cWhere\u2019s Danny?\u201d We look around like a bunch of children once again taken in by a magician\u2019s sleight of hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow the hell does he do that?\u201d we murmur, but fortunately, third dinner or fifth dessert draws our immediate and dedicated attention. None of us have yet figured out the irony of that question.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, things are different. I am in Prague and there will be no visit home. I am not complaining. I am very aware of the fact that my situation is far more ideal than others\u2019 and for that I am both very grateful and very sad.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out here in Prague 6 we are making do by jamming through the Christmas spirit with big meals and Christmas movies. On Christmas Eve, when I would normally be in my aunt\u2019s house shouting conversations from twenty feet away through a mouthful of meatball, I will be on Zoom. With the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zoom, in case you have been living on the moon for a year, is an online meeting platform. People appear in little gridded boxes, sort of like the online version of Hollywood Squares or The Brady Bunch opening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I teach on Zoom. And it\u2019s definitely a make-do thing. Tech problems can render a person mute, invisible, or with a voice like Stephen Hawking\u2019s. Sometimes a dog in the background or a child can make you mute a participant. Students who don\u2019t want to participate simply type \u201cmy camera and microphones is broke\u201d and there\u2019s not a whole hell of a lot I can do. There\u2019s the dreaded Zoom pause \u2013 you ask a question and in the five ensuing seconds you wonder if the students heard you and are about to reply, heard you and are ignoring you, or didn\u2019t hear you because they are out walking their dog. Then there\u2019s the breakout room, which is where you banish someone so they can speak to another person who\u2019s been banished there. I think traveling to a breakout room is the closest we can get to how people felt being beamed up by Scotty in Star Trek. Once you\u2019re there, there\u2019s a chance you\u2019ll hang out alone if someone\u2019s connection snaps. It\u2019s an ominous place. Dante\u2019s fourth circle if Bill Gates was Captain Kirk.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wonder how it\u2019s going to work with my family. For example, our conversations usually involve about nine voices shouting at once. The loudest wins, unless one of the other voices is announcing the arrival of food. What will we do on Zoom when only one person can speak at a time and when dinner is not nearly as enticing when you\u2019re in the same house? I fear that we will be allowed to speak until fully completing our thoughts. Nobody has ever done that in my house uninterrupted. It\u2019ll be like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope I can get into a cool breakout room. I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ll be stuck with my dad and uncle in the sleeping TV room. Or maybe I\u2019ll get banished to the virtual kitchen with my mom and aunts. It\u2019ll be more of a struggle to deal with the shouting if one of them isn\u2019t handing me a plate of pasta. I\u2019ll guess it\u2019ll be fun, but I wonder who will be put in charge with Uncle Danny? He\u2019ll still be able to slip away into the ether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My dad is resistant, but once he gets the hang of it I imagine he\u2019ll be hailing me to virtually watch college football with him. I\u2019ll happily oblige. I wonder if I can get a cheesesteak on Zoom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It isn\u2019t the family Christmas we had ever planned, but it\u2019s the one we have. We\u2019ll make do. As will all of you. And who knows, with all the Zoom family gatherings going on out there, maybe we\u2019ll get our lines crossed and I\u2019ll see you in the breakout room. If there\u2019s sleeping Italian men in there don\u2019t wake them up.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My brother floated the idea yesterday. \u201cHey, I think I\u2019m going to set up a Zoom meeting for the family on Christmas.\u201d \u201cGreat idea!\u201d I said as if I had mentioned in the previous text, which I had. \u201cAlmost everyone is in. Even Danny.\u201d This was big. My Uncle Danny has long been famous within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4185,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/santa-bigfoot.jpg?fit=504%2C373&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1kP","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5136,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135\/revisions\/5136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}