Duck Test

"She prides herself on calling a spade a spade"
"Any toddler can do that, but it takes a level of cognitive intelligence not to dig a hole doing it."

My Lancastrian cousin made me feel better in an instant.

My own family is all inclusive, we aren't even bound by blood in many cases. I have aunts whose actual connection to me is loosely linked by a second marriage somewhere along the way and yet we love each other dearly, know that we would be there for each other and will always be welcome.  My family room has many elephants in it's corners but we will support each other to ignore them.   Some of it I'm sure is a direct result of our northern roots.

I also have a non-family. A circle I have never been completely accepted into. I'm welcome to sit at the table and eat, my name is on the Christmas cards but when something happens and the ranks close in, I am left on the outside feeling excluded. Meet the Fockers has always had me in stitches. I know just how Greg feels except there is no Jack, there is just a group of people with no understanding of Ohana.

I've deliberated for many years whether it is culture or ostracism.  But I do know the duck test ...

If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

So I'm reassigned to the fact that I'm not in the circle, I'm not even a chink the chain never will be and that is not my family. But then I also know that

 a ducks opinion of me is largely based on whether or not I have any bread

And I don't much feel like wandering down to the pond anymore.