62. Kerrig's Account: Roast Sael With Baked Seravo on the Side.
Major Life Changes Marked By Cleaning Out All the Old Closets.
62. Kerrig’s Account: Roast Sael With Baked Seravo on the Side.
The last guests to arrive shocked poor Sael off his composure and into the pit right off the bat. It was all our senior officers – the whole bridge crew including the Captain. Poor Sael put his hand to his throat and exclaimed,
“At this arrival, my whole career is destroyed.” The Captain heard him, grinned and said, “Oh, not your whole career, Sael! Just the next 5 years.” The Captain was, of course, teasing him.
Giselle exploded laughter and grabbed David’s arm saying, “Poor Miss Sael is clutchin’ her pearls! She’s gonna need a fan and a faintin’ couch to get through this! Did I bring my smellin’ salts?!”
David exploded laughter back at her and this attracted Suvit’s attention. Upon explanation he rearranged their seats, so they sat next to each other and close to him. Suvit began as drinks were offered.
“Our family would like to welcome all guests to participate in a time-honored tradition... Of course, the truth is that nearly everything Vulcan has an associated tradition. We continuously look for the best way to do things and then try to repeat them so that something goes right more than once. If something makes it long enough to be called tradition that usually means it works well. However, there are no guarantees and so we are constantly modifying traditions. Our greatest tradition is that we change our traditions when they no longer work, or we find something better to do. Seeing as we found nothing better to do this evening, we are all here to participate in preparation for Sael and Seravo's Pon Est Abber. A Pon Est Abber is the final adult joining of a married couple and before we make big life changes it is a good idea to leave the past behind us as we move forward. To that end we meditate, confess past trespasses, account for things we may have neglected to share and make sure we harbor no secrets. We summarize our life’s story thus far and edit those things that need a re-write, if I may extend the metaphor. This way we do no not carry “past baggage?” into the future. Rather, we start clean and fresh. We enlist each other's help in doing this. Sael and Seravo have been preparing for 36 days, 18hrs approximately. We participate in this as family and friends who know them well, observe them frequently, and can exaggerate their foibles out of all proportion. This enables us to see them in all their ugliest detail or rapturous completeness. To humans, this is known as a roast. I am Suvit, Sael's oldest sibling and I will be moderating this evening. I would like to encourage you to avoid talking over the top of each other. That is just about the only rule. It is not necessary to be called on to make remarks or ask questions. You can simply belt them out rudely. We will be talking about childhood quite a bit because they have been away at school for 5 years during which they were lost to each other and us. Be not discouraged. We have plenty of material.
“I have been told that I am a wit. At first, I thought they said that I was wet and confused, I kept checking.”
He stopped, felt his crotch, nodded his head in affirmation and continued,
“You see, mother I am not, and I did check. Vulcan motherhood. You will note that I reported dryness to the person whom at one time I was regularly required to verify these things. Mothers discover that on a particularly warm day a toddler may not know the difference and must be held to account. It goes something like this,
"Do you need to urinate?"
"No."
"Why not? Are you wet?"
"No."
"Check before you say no."
And so, it has been from time immemorial. This includes the earliest teaching of the scientific method. Ask a question, search for an answer, collect data to support your theory, base your conclusion on it and submit a report. This was never necessary for Sael, however. He was always aware of his status, because he never let go of his… "You're laughing because although apocryphal, it has been said that he was born with his left hand full, and it has rarely been empty since.”
"That is not correct!" Said Sael, "It was my right hand."
“You are left-handed!”
“Almost all of us are, so I need my left hand free for other tasks.”
“There is nothing like Vulcan logic, younger brother. Oh, are our human friends unaware? While most of you are right-handed, we are mostly left-handed. Yes, I suppose it does explain a lot.
Vulcan children are extremely close to their parents as a result of our instinctive, and now very well-developed sense of melding. I am not going to define or describe that to those who do not have this sense or ability. That is my younger brother’s area of expertise. I will tell you about Vulcan sibling designations. My younger brother is always Sael. My youngest brother is Sarkabo. My Abber brother is Seravo. That should do for today.
We will start with some photo images of Sael and Seravo shortly after birth, at one year and then a quick collection of toddlerhood pictures. This is a picture of me holding Sael while an infant. I am 7yrs. old and he is approx. 100 days and already needs a haircut. Seravo is the first born of his family and so will have no sibling pictures until he is 7yrs. old, the same year he and Sael were joined in Pon Abber. I will play you some action clips of each child to show or remind of their early lives and activities. Many of these of Sael include his Givliet companion, Gilly who did not appreciate being displaced in bed by Seravo. There were occasional altercations regarding that situation and Gilly finally mastered the situation by sleeping on top of Seravo, or at least at his feet as you can see in this picture taken when they were 8yrs. old. We live adjacent a Lake. Vulcan is not as blue in appearance from space as Earth but actually has much more fresh water in the form of small Lakes, Large Lakes and Massive Lakes. Salts are still more concentrated in the middle of some of the larger continents where the land is uninhabitable by most life. It hasn’t been dissolved by rainfall and then run off to salinate oceans in anywhere near the amount as on Earth because our continental drift and plate tectonics are different from Earth. Rainfall, Lakes, rivers and small Oceans make up Vulcan and deciduous forests are more common than grass lands. This is why we eat more tree nuts and less grass grains than Humans. Yes, David – we DO eat like Squirrels. By the way, we have 5 species of semi-arboreal nut eating rodentia competing with us for food. Fortunately, we each prefer different nuts, so we live rather peacefully except when they insist on moving into our houses with us. Here is a picture of people-built rodent houses hanging in trees close to our buildings. When it is very windy and cold, they prefer these to what they can make from leaves when they cannot find enough holes in trees. Providing them with housing has reduced their attempts to make themselves at home by chewing their way into our buildings. These are commonly made by Vulcan teenagers as a creative occupation. They are usually assisted by the very elderly. You will notice many of our pictures involve water activities. We were taught to swim in infancy. It has never occurred to Vulcans to be dressed while in the water, so you will see all swimmers are naked no matter what our ages. In our location we eat, collect, and farm a variety of Lake lettuces and a vegetable tuber that grows in swamp land. Garden vegetables of all kinds are grown by everyone, everywhere in addition to large farms. Food processing and preservation is done by co-operative as well as corporation. Land is not owned on Vulcan. It is used, utilized, and in the case of permanent buildings upon it a land use tax is collected but no one owns land itself. It is public domain and publicly regulated through a representative Democracy. Our concept and history of ownership is a very different story from many other species.
Vulcan children are educated through a variety of activities, opportunities, and organizations. Here are pictures showing Seravo and Sael working at music, dance, defense, mathematics, language development, elocution, reading, writing, a variety of artistic endeavors including this one in particular, that I thought should be included. At age 10 they painted each others’ bodies head to foot in patterns meant to augment each other’s features. They planned these in advance with sketches and relatively little arguing considering their natures which tend to be quite…fussy and particular. T’Lahl and I were 17 at the time and about to enter our Pon GeAbber. I suggested to her that we do this as well. She refused. I have never understood why but as I observe her now with the other females at the table, they all seem to agree with her refusal even though they are not even the same species. Some mysteries will always remain, I suppose.
At this juncture I will share a story and after that we will take a short interlude and resume with me talking much less and you speaking much more.