Extremely light traffic.

And you know the really cool thing about being able to listen to Indie 103.1 from my computer, while at work? I mean, aside from all of the old Ramones, Clash, Sex Pistols and X songs they so love to play? The fact that they show the artist and song name on their little disply box. Seeing as how they rarely share this information on the radio, this has been quite helpful (right now they�re playing Misfit by Elefant�I know � who? But I love the song and never knew who does it, until I was able to �steal� Kim�s old speakers after she left and start listening to the radio on my computer. This is why I need the helpful little display box. I am completely out of touch with you hip youngsters�or hip old people, for that matter. I am tragically un-hip). Oh and I just discovered that the song I thought was called I Put it To Rest is actually called I Predict a Riot by Kaiser Chiefs.

Doh! �Slow Brother Robert� anyone? (Cathy used to think this was what the song Smoke on the Water was saying. She also thought when REM sang �You are not me� in the song Losing My Religion they were saying �You are knock-knee�d�. Har!)

In other news�I can not believe the ginormous amount of leftover Shrimp Fried Rice I just ate for lunch.

Yes, I said leftover. As in, John and I ordered Chinese Food on Christmas night.

Hey, I�m nothing if not traditional in my celebrations.

But I�m giving you information out of order. So here, in neatly chronological order as is my anal-retentive preference, is my Holiday Wrap-Up:

Thursday Night I went for an eight-mile walk with Jenn, which was great fun. She gave me a very cool mixed-CD of Christmas tunes, too.

Christmas Eve was spent at the folks� house, with lots of family and only a little bit of drama. As was threatened, Lou did show up with Jeremy in tow (even though Sondra had to work), but I was deftly able to steer clear of having to speak much to Lou and if Jeremy was acting up, my attention was thankfully diverted enough so that I didn�t notice. I know all the boys and their boy-kid-like-behavior was getting on the last nerve of my father and especially my mother, but I just blissfully ignored the whole situation. Because I am sick of being the only one who acts like a parent to these raucous boys and I refuse to do it anymore. They have parents. You sire �em, you deal with �em.

Unfortunately, what that really means is that nobody really deals with them at all�but again � I am determined to remain in ignorant bliss.

Thankfully, we always have lots of wine at family get-togethers.

Barbara had my name in the gift-exchange and so I received a new, small and stainless steel microwave � the exact perfect one! � and a Texas Hold �Em set. Not that one really needs a set of anything except playing cards in order to play Texas Hold �Em, but receiving this gift did encourage a whole bunch of us to play a rousing game, once all the gifts were unwrapped and much wine imbibed. Aside from the fact that I was out of dough by like the third hand and thus relegated to the status of �Dealer� for the rest of the game, it was a lot of fun. Nobody else in my family had ever played, so it was fun teaching them. We played sans �blinds� though so as to make the instruction process easier on our alcohol-soaked brain cells.

We also played a couple games of Sequence, which I had bought for Amy.

Amy appropriately appreciated all of the gifts I bought for her and Mikey (I went way beyond our supposed $40 spending limit, as is my wont. I mean, what the fuck can you buy for $40?). And only Amy would appear to like most the flock of chicks I purchased on her behalf, from Heifer Intl.

The macaroni and cheese I made was a tad light on the cheese. I�ll have to remember that, the next time I make it (the carrot loaves I made for people at work and for a shin-dig with John�s family yesterday, though, were a huge hit).

Barbara and Arnett had a mini-drama Christmas Eve night, in the form of Arnett�s son Joe.

Joe is visiting this week and staying with Barbara and Arnie. In a nutshell, he�s being extremely demanding of their time, their car and their hospitality in general. He�s...uh...rather self-centered. The drama stemmed from the fact that he called Arnett at the last minute and demanded to be picked up from his aunt�s house in Pasadena so that he could join us for our Christmas Eve festivities. Oh and not just him, but his twin 13-year-old half-sisters, as well.

It�s a whole long story, but the gist of this particular part of the ongoing Joe-drama is that Arnett had made the ham for our family dinner. Arnett also has severe health problems which stem from his high blood pressure. Joe calling him at the last minute meant Arnett had to rush over to my folks� to drop off the ham, then drive about 30 miles through Christmas Eve traffic to pick them up and bring them all the way back. This was not good. Arnett got stressed, Barbara got pissed at the fact that Joe never thinks about his father�s health and Barbara also of course worried over Arnett�s stress-level and what that means to his health. And this was just the latest in a series of Joe-related events last week which pissed Barb right the fuck off.

Anyway, as it turned out, a fit was thrown at Joe�s aunt�s house thereby dictating that the twins stay there. This was good news because my parents live in a tiny, tiny home. As it is, we are always stuffed in the living room like well-dressed sardines. There was no room for two extra bodies. There�s really not even enough room for the family that shows up every year. Of course Joe knew this beforehand, but whatever.

The drama has continued with these people, but I guess my journal is not really the place to detail it all. So aside from that little bit of drama, we had a great time.

John opened his gifts from me on Christmas morning. He loves his motorcycle cover and was quite appreciative. I think he knew he was getting it, though. He at least knew he was getting something for his bike. Poop. He wasn�t as thrilled with the water-filtration system I purchased in an effort to keep him from spending the hundreds of dollars he currently spends on bottled water, but hey � it was a water filtration system. What�s to get excited about?

As expected, John did not get me a Christmas gift. Before you get all indignant on my behalf, however, please remember that I told him not to. Actually, I asked him to change my oil, wash my car and remove the John Kerry stickers from it without removing any of it�s red paint, as my Christmas gift. John is short on funds. I would much rather he spend what money he has on his grandkids� presents.

Plus, I need my oil changed and don�t like to mess with that sort of thing on my own.

John and I did very little else on Christmas Day. I made us breakfast in bed, complete with two bottles of champagne. We watched Elf on pay-per-view. We watched It's a Wonderful Life, complete with far too many commercial interruptions. We ate liquor-filled chocolates. John proved that his liver is getting old by slipping in to a three-hour coma after we finished off the champagne. Then we ordered the afore-mentioned Chinese food for dinner and had a good long laugh at the fact that the delivery-guy is in complete love with me. And some how doesn�t know that its not really appropriate to walk in to strangers homes�, just because they ordered food from your restaurant.

Alissa was supposed to be at my parent�s house at noon on Sunday. The plan was for John and I to visit with her for about an hour, then jet off to his cousin�s in Moorpark to make tamales with his family.

So first thing in the morning yesterday, I made a carrot bunt cake (same as my carrot loaves, except�bigger and in a bundt pan). And almost threw the Mesozoic-era oven supplied by my landlord right out the window.

After an hour of its baking, I took the cake out of the oven and stupidly shut the oven off. I then discovered, after deftly applying the toothpick-test to the cake, that it wasn�t quite done.

And then couldn�t get the pilot light on the oven to re-light (you see, I have to light the oven with a match every time I want to use it...same thing goes for each of the burners).

Luckily, there was still enough heat left in the oven to finish the cake and it turned out good anyway. But I was very irritated about the ordeal, especially after both John and I tried in vain for like five minutes to get the damn thing to fire up again.

All of this led to me and John getting in to a bit of a tiff. Because, you see, I can�t just be irritable without John assuming I am being irritable with him. So I just had to remind him for the 107th time that not all roads lead to John and not all of my moods are directly related to him. Which led him to lecture me about how not everything has to be perfect, including my damn carrot bundt cake which nobody had asked me to bake anyway.

I was taking said carrot bundt cake to his cousin�s; because in my world, when someone invites you over to eat their food and drink their liquor all day, even if you are going to make tamales, you bring something with you.

Anyway, so we finally left the pad to go to my parents. We were a bit late and arrived at 12:30.

And Alissa was not there.

She showed up (with Sarah and Chris) at about 1:00. Well, John and I had to run off to his cousin�s house, so I only saw her for maybe fifteen minutes. Which kind of sucked.

We finally got to his cousin�s place at about 2:45 or so because Moorpark is way, way far away from my parent�s house. It�s only 25 miles away from freakin� Ventura, for God�s sake. Anyway, over all we had a pretty fun time. I was still a tad irritated with John, but the oven-issue had blown over. I was now irritated because, although he asked me to drive all day, he consistently harassed me about what he perceives to be my lack of driving ability.

Not to get all Rain Man over it, but I really am a very good driver.

So I got all, "Why did you have me drive if all you're going to do is bitch at me?" Plus, you know - I will admit that I have a tendency to get irrationally irritated when I'm driving, because of idiots on the road. I know I do this, but nobody is worse when it comes to this than John so when he is trying to lecture me about getting a grip (which he was doing on the way home), it just strikes me as completely hypocritical.

It�s all blown over now, of course, and we were back to our usual, randy selves this morning. And over all, we had a pleasant time at his cousin�s. And I now have like 4 dozen tamales in my freezer.

Kids, you would not believe his cousin's house! Very lovely. And freakin� HUGE. The main living room/dining room has like 20 foot ceilings! Like me, they love Santa Fe. They have a beautiful Navajo run on the wall, and other pretty artifacts and decorations which I of course adored. Their bedroom is huge, too, and they have a beautiful master bathroom with a whirlpool, Roman tub and huge shower. They�re on 5 acres of land and have a lovely back yard, with fruit trees and an infinity pool and hot tub. And a great big, cook's kitchen with lots of cool doo-hickeys. Just gorgeous! I wasn't too jealous, but I sure would love a home like that. Man, I could throw some fun parties!

I met some new (to me) members of John's family and had some nice talks with his sister, Kitty (she just had a hysterectomy) and John's mom. And also his uncle, Ken, who owns an observatory and arboretum in Three Rivers, CA which is just outside of Sequoia Natl. Park. Which is funny because I was thinking about taking John there recently and saw his uncles� web page without knowing it was his uncle.

Anyway, we have an open invitation to visit them there and we may do so for a weekend in the Spring (when the arboretum stuff is blooming with new life).

Ken and his wife were really neat.

So John is here all week and hopefully we can avoid any more �tiffs�. One thing working in our favor is the fact that he will be spending one or two of those nights with his grandkids�

Oh, you know I love the guy. But, you know�that doesn�t mean I always like him. And having him constantly under foot may prove challenging.

The constant availability of penis will be a nice change of pace, though.

And he may not have made me breakfast this morning, despite my hint-dropping, but the good news is, I was only ten minutes late to work this morning, despite leaving a warm body at home and taking a flat iron to my hair.

~~~

Word of the Day for Monday December 27, 2004

brackish BRAK-ish, adjective:
1. Somewhat salty.
2. Distasteful; unpalatable.

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