{"id":416,"date":"2004-02-08T17:01:07","date_gmt":"2004-02-08T22:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=416"},"modified":"2022-10-09T13:14:39","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T17:14:39","slug":"sweet-sixteen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=416","title":{"rendered":"Sweet Sixteen: “Where’s the loser?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was a family brunch for my cousin Emma <\/a>– who is now 16. (With a diamond stud in her nose and a driver’s permit in her wallet to prove it.)<\/p>\n

I’m not sure “sweet” sixteen is appropriate, because the O’Malleys are many many things – but … I would not say “sweet” is one of them. (Thank God. Who needs “sweet”?) LOUD, perhaps. Loving. Intelligent. Conversation filled with insults – people getting all riled up, people warned, “Don’t take the bait, don’t take the bait!” But someone always takes the bait.<\/p>\n

“So where’s the loser?” my father called out to Emma – referring, lovingly, to Emma’s brother.<\/p>\n

In the O’Malley family, “where’s the loser” translates as: “I miss Ian. I wish he were here. How is he doing?”<\/p>\n

It was wonderful, though – My parents drove down, my uncle Tony, aunt Marianne – my uncle Tom, his wife Betsy – my unbelievably cute 3-year old cousin Grace (I asked her how old she was and she shouted, enthusiastically, “FREE!!”)- Grace had an enormous barrette in the front of her staticky hair, holding together about 5 strands of hair, and even with all her writhing about and running around – it never moved, it never fell out. My cousin Liam, his wife Lydia – my uncle Tom’s son Chris (it was his birthday too) and his girlfriend – my aunt Regina (Emma’s mom) – my cousin Kerry’s husband Adam … my sister Siobhan … Hm. Did I miss anyone?<\/p>\n

We all convened on the Bowery Bar for brunch – to celebrate the 16th birthday of Emma.<\/p>\n

Family is IT.<\/p>\n

Family is all that matters.<\/p>\n

Each and every person – precious to me.<\/p>\n

Happy birthday Emma! And Chris!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was a family brunch for my cousin Emma – who is now 16. (With a diamond stud in her nose and a driver’s permit in her wallet to prove it.) I’m not sure “sweet” sixteen is appropriate, because the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[600],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177925,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/177925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}