Christmas

OMG I think I gained 500 lbs!

And unfortunately, my extended family has never heard of vegetables. We had smoked duck, honey-glazed duck, smoked ham, scalloped potatoes, and some sort of radioactive pepto bismol gelatin mould. No veggies. I think a waldorf salad would have been good. But someone must have had a temporary mental glitch. No surprise, it being Christmas and all.

And it wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Apparently two of the cats died since I was there last, so I didn't have a horrible allergic reaction, despite the fact that their two male cats are huge and don't clean themselves so they have a lot of dander. Raven is 25 pounds of black huggable blubber (although he is quite muscular too). And Charlie (who has a Charlie Chaplin moustache) is probably about 20 pounds. It was very cool not to see them through itchy watery eyes.

My grandfather was generally the same, minus his girlfriend who lives in Albany.

My uncle from Vietnam didn't get too drunk and we had an intelligent conversation about how he got a cat as a wedding gift and he was allergic to it and eventually he gave it away and it walked in front of a truck. Anyway it was cool to have a conversation with him. And my aunt was (to use Barb's term) a little bit softer than usual. See, my Aunt Janette has always had a sort of "hard mind" and my Aunt Diane a "soft mind." (They are sisters, really close in age, and for the longest time I couldn't tell them apart.) Ever since their mother died, the gap in "hard mind/ soft mind" got bigger. But tonight, Janette was a little softer. Coulda been the whiskey sours. Aunt Marilyn, Uncle Ed, Uncle Pete were the same. Fun, smiling, generally happy people. Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Ted weren't there, neither were Aunt Janet and Uncle Bob, or the uncle in California I've met once and whose name I forgot.

And my cousins. Well. Ok well they were the same as always. Pete was not there, he's driving to Alberta Canada via the Grand Canyon to find himself and eventually learn massage therapy in Canada. Taryn showed up and pretended to be interested before going off with her fiancee who has three kids from another marriage. Which she always does. And Christina and Allison also pretended to be interested. Example:

Allison: Hey Dan, what year are you now?
My Brother: Senior
A: Wow what are you doing next year?
D: I don't know, I'm thinking about Stevens or Lehigh, they're both engineering schools.
A: Wow well you should definitely go visit all three of those.
Dan to me: I love how our cousins ask a question and then don't listen to the answer.

Rob and Chris and Kim wouldn't do that... they are actually related to us by blood and kind of care about their relations. But Rob's got a family in Maryland and Chris has a closet apartment in DC and can't leave. And Kimmy's in England or Georgia or somewhere far away. So they weren't there tonight. And that's about it on the Christmas update. Notice how I talked about food first, then cats, then family. I love priorities.

Speaking of which... I'll throw you all for a loop and put gifts in here. You can all wonder whether I saved the best for last or just am really non-materialistic. I got three Lord of the Rings calendars hahaha. I wonder if that says anything about me. And I got a card to Build-a-Bear workshop. Hehehe. I looked online. They have martial arts clothing for the bears. That makes me happy. And Anissa's bread and coasters from Steve. Anyway... I got some other little nick-knacks but not much because I got my down-comforter Christmas gift a month early.

Overall... It was generally a better Christmas than most. That and people kept calling me while I was at my Aunt's house, which was a nice and pleasant interruption. I'm loved and I know it and that makes me happier than a 25 pound cat in a house full of duck and ham.