Dana and Devon at the Great Wall

Went out for Chinese food with my uncle Dana and his twin sons on Monday. I drove up to Augusta with Manda and Greg, her boyfriend, and we met Dana at the Big Apple on 201.

I'd never met Dana's youngest kids before. I grew up with his first group of children- Adam, Sherry and Pete. He later married a woman with 3 children, adopted them, and then a few years later had the twins. Oddly, he named one of the twins Dana Jr. This is strange for two reasons: Not only is the child a twin, but it's his 5th child, 8th if you count the 'dopties.

Anyway, we crammed into Dana's truck and drove up to the Great Wall Buffet up near the Civic center. I try to stay clear of buffets, especially Chinese, but Dana said he ate there several times a week so I just had small portions and kept it simple: chicken teriyaki, crab rangoon, pork fried rice, sesame chicken- your staple American Chinese foods. I felt only moderately sick a few hours later.

The kids were very cute and friendly. Devon was more talkative and outgoing, but Dana was quick to please. They both spoke extensively about quarter tattoos and their tree house. When I asked Devon who was older, he said he was. I asked him by how much and he thought long and hard about it and said 3 months. He meant minutes.

After the meal Manda was reading the horoscopes to the boys and Devon said that Robert, probably a friend of his father's, was a Rat, according to the astrology chart. Devon later found out that Horses should marry Rats, but he made sure we didn't connect the dots by loudly declaring, "I'm not going to marry Robert!"

I talked to Dana Jr. on the ride back to the Big Apple and told him all about the rocks he'd gotten out of the quarter machines. I made up origins and stories behind the different rocks and told him he should find the best rock in his driveway and encase it in one of the extra plastic bubbles and stash it away somewhere. He asked if I could help him but Manda had to drive back to Mass so we saw them off.