Tag Archives: family

The Family

Family

In which I’ve seen in the past week both of my parents and all of their siblings and nearly all of their siblings’ spouses and children.

For no particular reason, both of my parents came to town to visit this week. They’ve been divorced for twenty-seven years, so it’s strange that they should both have shown up at the same time. Made my week pretty busy, actually.

My dad rolled into town in his RV with his brother on board, and we all went to see my aunt, their sister, for dinner. There was a large feast at my house with my mom and all of her siblings. My dad took me out to lunch on Tuesday and out to dinner last night. There was ice cream cake at the house for G’ma’s birthday. Suffice it to say, the diet suffered this week.

Hanging out with family is informative. I know from having looked at a bunch of my female relatives exactly where my tits are going to be in twenty years. I have learned that my dad and I are extroverts and my mother and brother are introverts. I listened to the Hall women tell me most emphatically that I’m not pudgy. I rediscovered that Morgans will drink until the bar closes.

Pretty cool, really, to be back around family. In the 15 years I spent in the Midwest, I saw my mom twice and my dad maybe five times, and the rest of my family only once: the weekend I got married. I didn’t really have anyone around to bug me about birthdays, holidays, family events, grave sites, and the like.

I was an island. I liked it.

But I also like being back in the middle of my family again. Walla Walla is where my parents are from; this is where my relatives come to come home.

Of course, this relative-fest in the middle of September probably means that no one will be around for the holidays, but that’s okay. G’ma and I will eat cookies and drink mugs of tea without them.

Christmas Goodies

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In which I tell you what I got for Xmas!

Christmas day was fun. I slept in, which is always awesome. Then I vacuumed the living room, helped G’ma with food preparation, set up the card table and found chairs. Around 1:30 the family showed up.

Presents!

We ate, opened gifts, and then had dessert. It was a lovely afternoon.

Behold the awesome goods I received:

  • a cute hand-crocheted hat
  • a wallet
  • a Dalek cell phone charm!
  • a gift certificate for a cut & color with my stylist
  • a towel and some bath soak
  • an Amazon gift certificate
  • $15 cash
  • a bag of food: pasta, brownie mix, candy, and more
  • a salad cook book
  • a gift bag with pens, oranges and cookies

A pretty awesome haul, methinks! Apparently there will be more when we see the rest of the family; G’ma said my aunt Sue has her gift for me, and my cousins and other aunt & uncle will probably show up at some point for belated gift exchanges. The damn weather kept half the family from coming to Walla Walla, so we still have a big pile of unopened gifts for them under the tree.

Which means we get to have Christmas AGAIN later! Yay!

How’d you all make out? Anybody get anything really wonderful?

Update: Also got a bitchin’ solar system poster from ThinkGeek!

National Dead Turkey Day

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In which I had a Thursday off.

On Thanksgiving I did the following:

Slept in.
Got up.
Hung out with Sue & Blue.
Demonstrated my iThing for my aunt Sue.
Showered.
Got dressed.
Rode to Dave & Reva’s in my bro’s truck.
Ate black olives. A lot of them!
Had a glass of white wine.
Took cell phone pictures.
Ate a couple of deviled eggs.
Filled my plate.
Ate.
Visited with family.
Played with my iThing.
Had more white wine.
Went home.
Charged my iThing.
Napped.
Went bowling with my bro and teh BF.
Bowled a 169 game!
Went to the Blue.
Had two cocktails with my BF.
Went home.
Tried to go to bed.
Got up and had a smoke with my brother.
Went back to bed.

I am of course thankful for my family, my friends, my health, and my job, but mainly I’m thankful for the fact that in the weeks leading up to yesterday I was neither a turkey, a pig, nor a lamb.

Aunts and Uncles and Cousins, Oh My!

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In which Xmas day was super plus fun!

Xmas 2007Christmas Day totally rocked.

It’s been years since I’ve celebrated this holiday with my blood family, and it was really great to be at Gramma’s house with a whole passel of aunts and uncles and cousins and their spouses and parents. We ate dinner mid-afternoon, then Dave went to get his kids and we opened gifts around three in the afternoon.

Yes, I said three. Three! In the afternoon! It took forever to get to the present-opening; I thought I was gonna die. (I got cute red jammies from Gramma, two gift certificates, earrings, coffee, mugs, candy, and lots of other fun stuff. It was awesome.)

My band wanted to record a demo that afternoon, but I didn’t go. While their enthusiasm is awesome, as far as I know we don’t have even three songs worked out yet. The idea is that we need to slap together a demo and start booking gigs so that we will have a reason to practice… we’re all people who write papers the night before they’re due, I guess.

In completely unrelated news, I have a dental appointment on January 2nd. Yay! I need to get my teeth cleaned so bad it’s disgusting, but this particular office didn’t let me make an appointment for a cleaning – I have to got through their evaluation and intake crap first, and get x-rays. They’d better get me back in the next fucking day, though, because I think my teeth are so plaque-ridden that I’m running a low-level infection in my gums. Which is totally gross, and which makes my mouth taste like tin foil, and which makes my tongue all white and gross when I wake up every morning. I’ll probably need another planing and scaling, which is expensive and takes four visits, but which keeps one’s gums from receding and leaves one’s mouth pristine.

First the uterus. Then the teeth. Next, the eyes. Eventually I’ll be practically normal!

Good Things

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In which I count my blessings this holiday season. (I’m a blessings-counter by nature.) (Which seems like a good quality, but it gave me a fucking panic disorder when I was too stupid to know when I was unhappy.) (Just sayin’. Pollyannaism ain’t always good.)

Dangerous, my uncle, sent me a huge Amazon.com gift certificate. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how to spend it: get stuff off my Wishlist? Get other stuff? Get a bunch of little things? Get one big thing? It’s so fun. (Last year, my mom gave me a $100 certificate for a knitting store and I nearly went ballistic trying to figure out what to get.)

The house is full of good stuff to injest. Salty snacks, cookies, oatmeal bars. Booze.

My dog is fat and happy.

I rearranged my room yesterday and I like it better. I found some computer stuff I’ve been looking for for months, in the bottom of a box I thought was completely full of files.

Someone’s offered to buy the jeep as soon as I find the title. He only offered me $150, but I might just take it to get rid of the thing. It’s not like I’m gonna part it out or anything, and a scrap yard would probably only give me half that.

I’m slowly making friends here – musicians and co-workers. It’s good.

There are presents under the tree with my name on them. I didn’t do much Christmas shopping because all my money goes to pay medical bills, but I do have a little something under the tree from me for everyone.

My aunt and uncle will be at the house when I get home from work tonight. And I get to leave early, because the phones aren’t ringing. The boss was called by the shift supervisor, and he said he was on his way with some Christmas Cheer for those few of us here and then letting us go home early.

I stayed up ’til three in the morning reading a good book.

Life is good. Peace to you and yours!