Today is Obi's birthday. Last night his grandmother (always known as "Camping Grandma' because he actually has two grannies) took us out for dinner. To the boathouse, which is my all-time favourite resturant (the same chain Obi took me too for our first date no less!). Now, because Obi worked yesterday and has such a long commute, Camping Grandma picked me up and he caught the bus from work to meet up with us. This is the first time I've ever been alone with the woman for more than five minutes, so I was a bit nervous! She's lovely and I've always liked her, but I do have a (very well managed) social anxiety disorder that makes me worry in situations like this.

Well, I had nothing to worry about and I really wish we'd done it sooner! She's very easy to talk to and open minded. We'd been talking about the wedding at one point. When she comes to Australia for it, two of her friends are coming with her to tour and see NZ as well, so I said that they would be welcome to come to the wedding too if she wanted them there. (Personally if I were touring for a month with any of my friends I might relish a day apart from them!) She said that she'd love that, and they probably would too, and that she'd ask them. Being brave I warned her that it's a pagan ceremony, so if she thinks they'd have an issue with that or be at all uncomfortable then they could just come to the reception and party. I also told her I'm concerned because many of both Obi's family and mine are Christian and might very well be offended or something. I think we both knew I'm thinking of Obi's mom, if not others.

Anyway so she spent a good part of the drive (40 minutes) and dinner asking me about Wicca and reincarnation, and asking Obi how he feels about it and if he's planning to convert, what he does to support me and all that. Apparently she was sent to sunday school, but her parents weren't practicing Christians, and she herself doesn't get anything from religion - she can't feel any connection or anything. But she's always believed in reincarnation and has had no one to talk about it with. So it was nice. I got to explain handfasting to someone and she thought it was lovely and didn't freak out.
It was funny, at one point when she was talking to Obi he's like "No I'll stay as I am" (ie not converting) and she's like "And what's that? Christian?" and he looks mock-horrified and waves his hands saying "No, no no.... but don't tell mom because she probably still thinks I am". He's a funny boy. Grandma's like "It's ok your mum and I don't talk about religion because I'm over here *puts hand on the table* and she's over here *puts other hand down, far away from the first*"
It explains some of the dynamic I've seen between them, and some of the not very tactful things mom has said about camping grandma in the past.

One of the things we spoke about was time as a human concept that doesn't truly exist. It was interesting. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it. Who knew he had such a cool interesting granny?

She's worried we'll have kids and it'll be too hard for us to come back, we'll get settled or whatever. I tried to put her mind at ease.
... I just got a text from my phone company telling me I owe three times more than I should. I'm calling them. >< More blog later.