Well, I hope you all survived Thanksgiving and all the family stuff that can ensue during such celebrations. As you can clearly see by reading this post, I survived as well. I'm amazed I don't have the hangover from hell, actually. Maybe it just hasn't caught up with me yet.
We hung out at my eldest brother's house for a while yesterday so that we could actually enjoy one another's company before we went to the House of Angst for the family gathering, wherein my father and eldest brother could shoot daggers of hate at each other. (Actually, my brother wouldn't do that, but my father would. More on that in a minute.) That part was nice. My sister-in-law and I started hitting the wine bottle at that point. We referred to it, not as wine, but as anesthesia.
Off we went to the wicked future step-sister's (henceforth known as WFSS) house. Upon arrival, WFSS's four year old and two year old clambered all over my two cute nephews and dragged them upstairs for toy-filled party time. Let me point out that these two kids of hers...oy, they're some ugly kids. I swear to God, the youngest looks exactly like the spawn of Mr. Potato Head and a human woman. How that kid got such a doughy, blocky head, I'll never know. He was born with this giant blood blister on the side of his neck...but I digress.
I mentioned earlier that the WFSS had recently found Jesus after years of being a lunatic, drunken slut. She's passing that on to her kids, because the four year-old kept running into the living room or dining room and yelling, "Raise your hands if you love Jesus!" I think she was concerned that 75% of the people in the room weren't raising their hands.
Thank goodness the food was edible, and I have no lingering after-effects. It usually only takes 4 to 6 hours for food poisoning to set in, right?
I referred a moment ago to conflict between my dad and my brother. My dad has a tendency to neglect his own family in favor of his fiancee's family. I think it's a codependency thing--the more needy they are, the more he needs to be their knight in shining armor. Which usually occurs at the expense of my brother's kids and the plans they had with my dad, and has led to some words being exchanged between dad and brother in the last few weeks. When we rode over there with my brother and his family, we extended our, "We really should be back on the highway home by 4:00," excuse to them. On purpose. I was talking to my dad out in the front yard, when he mentioned that he knew that was why they had come with us. I said, "Of course it is. None of us want to be here." (I have Ernesto and Julio Gallo to thank for that remark.) He got all puffed up with righteous anger and said, "Then why did you even come?" I got right back up his nose and said, "Because we wanted to make you happy, okay?" He backed down after that and was actually much improved in his attitude.
Anyway, that's part of the saga of our Thanksgiving. I hope to post a picture of my two year-old nephew, Spenser, in all his pirate regalia. He's going through a bit of a phase right now.