The plan, such as it is, is to go to a movie (specifically, On the Basis of Sex) and eat some chinese food tomorrow. I'm pretty much okay with this.
Wide awake, sober, and alone. Any two of those would be manageable.
I've told the girls they can go downstairs in five minutes and just had my eighth interruption in the six hours since I went to sleep. I do not like Christmas and I'm not even alone because Mara was scared and came into my bed and eventually I let her stay and sleep. She's the only one not wide awake and waiting.
And now unwrapping is through (well, unwrapping itself was minimal; each girl got a new blanket wrapped around her pile of otherwise unwrapped gifts) and each girl shrieked with delight at least once. I'm very glad I didn't spend money on myself or have a stocking for myself because it makes everything so much easier.
Apart from the gifts of sleeplessness and shrieking?
I don't have them get me gifts. It's just more work and expense for me. Selah made a little gingerbread-looking ornament that smells like cloves and gave that to me. Not getting presents is much easier than orchestrating them myself.
Rascal asked me if he got me anything.
That's such a great opportunity for gaslighting. Once in a lifetime.
Wrapping everything all together in a big blanket is a totally novel Christmas act, at least to me. Seems like a great time saver. You could, if they all got a lacrosse stick or something, make them all into holiday bindles and imply that Santa rides the rails during his off season.
Santa rides the rails during his off season
Hey, that gives me an idea for a consulting gig...
Yeah, I also love the blanket wrapping. I think it even looks festive and bright and not like a cop-out, although I am totally in favor of cop-outs and that was not a backhanded compliment.
I caused drama with AJ's family. He told his mother a couple years ago that my mother has Alzheimer's and is in a Memory Care facility and she was never to discuss it with me. She asked him questions for a while, and it bugged him (and made me think he had underreported Mom's condition - "is she having symptoms?" Um?), then she stopped. I was chatting with a SIL who asked whether ai was going to visit my father for the holiday. I said yea, and that I'd also likely get a chance to visit Mom this trip. I was in the middle of "it's been months since I've seen her" when AJ's mother (from across the room) perkily chirped, "And how IS your mom?" I was, er, not the most polite. "Dying. It's terrible. She can't eat. Why would you ask me that in the middle of a nice, festive occasion?" She put on a serious face and said sadly, "Yes, I understand." I turned 13 and said, "No, I don't think you do. Besides, I thought we had a deal on discussing my mother," got up and skulked down to the euchre game in the basement.
Apparently, that made her cry and think I hate her, and AJ's sister told me I ruined Christmas and couldn't I just be nicer to her? She only means well! I said I like her fine, this was unacceptable, and I was happy to be the bigger person and apologize but that I didn't think I should have to. In their family, the person most demonstratively hurt wins.
AJ and his sister went and soothed her (apparently by politely misunderstanding the issue and making it about my inappropriate expression of grief!) but I'm still furious. He has assured me that this was likely sufficiently memorable so as not to happen ever again, but yuck. Then, I went home and cried for a few hours.
Sorry ydnew. (And I'm glad you made her cry even if you aren't.) (My Christmas: one email, two replies. 100 words tops. Exile is the best.)
Sorry ydnew.
My Christmas has been fine, I guess. Atossa is playing with Cassandane's parents, who are visiting us for the week, so that's a nice respite. I got a few presents I don't know what to do with, but I'll survive. Sounds stupid, I know, but I'm bad at both the giving and the receiving parts of the holiday.
Sorry to hear that ydnew. Sometimes Midwesterns are the worst.
Thanks. I usually appreciate it when folks ask about her, it was just that she literally jumped into the conversation the moment it came up with the most chipper fucking tone. This is literally the only thing I have EVER asked if her. It felt like she's been waiting the entire time for the opportunity to hear all about it. She sat near my father at Thanksgiving - she could have asked him if she were so interested.
I'm also grumpy AJ felt my behavoir needed excusing. He told her my family doesn't discuss it. And that I'm having trouble coping. (For the sake of harmony, because she only meant to help and be nice, of course.) Well, we do! And I'd say I'm doing pretty well. I got an update from my father when I arrived that her weight is up about 5 lbs but she's sleeping more and more. She can still walk unsteadily, about the length of a hallway. She has seizures, but meds changes seem to have made them less frequent. It's been eleven years. She turns 70 in June. A fast death would be merciful, but I doubt we'll get that.
(Basement euchre is the most specifically Upper Midwest element here, no? I keep "forgetting" how to play.)
I'm baking a bunch of cookies to take in when we visit later for her caregivers. Maybe she'll manage to eat one.
We used to play a lot of euchre in high school and college.
I should send a basket of pears to mom's floor's staff.
I'm so sorry to hear that, ydnew. I never know how to talk about my mom's somewhat comparable situation*--what do they already know? Will they understand that improvement X is actually a good thing, even though it sounds awful? How can I explain that it was a seizure, not a stroke, etc.? How much performative sorrow do I need to do over something that's been a part of my life for years, lest I get The Strangered?--and so I think whatever emotional reaction you need to it is right. Some people want all personal traumas to be shared traumas that they can dissect safely from a distance, and maybe they'll be nice about it but it'll never really be theirs. So sorry that she's being an ass, and that your husband is trying to split the difference in terms of emotional support.
I assume "basement euchre" is some sort of regionally-specific sex act. But whatever plays in Peoria, I guess.
* Only four years here since her MS entered the chronic stage. Bad seizures led to cognitive decline and most left-side control loss. She spent a few years in a nursing home, now my dad is taking care of her with occasional nursing aides. Sometimes she recognizes me, but usually if she thinks I'm anyone it's her brother (a Philly-accented former salesman who looks a bit like Danny DeVito, so this always tickles me).
It felt like she's been waiting the entire time for the opportunity to hear all about it.
This is exactly what I was thinking when I read your description of how it unfolded. That she thought she had plausible deniability to pretend this was a legitimate pretext to pounce.
I remember you describing her bullshit before - I'm sorry you have to deal with it.
I love euchre and it's one of the very few things I miss about Michigan. I also liked fall, and Zingerman's.
The first time I played euchre, I thought it was a drinking game invented by local alcoholics and named after Bob Uecker by someone too emotionally invested in Mr. Belvedere. I never connected it to the 'euchre' which I had read about because I didn't know how to pronounce it properly and because it never occurred to me that a real card game would have something called a 'jick'.
I think it was another word for "left jack.". I never heard of a bower.
My sister managed to lose a vital part of the aeropress last night so I had no coffee this morning. We had seven people round for lunch including s vegan. My mother had to have a special side plate for all the food she cheerful or sucked and then pulled out of her mouth. But we all survived.
I'm sorry, Ydnew, that sounds like such a pain.
We went out for Chinese with friends in Baltimore, then watched A Muppet Family Christmas on YouTube. Now, cat-themed board games.
Left jack, left bower, right atrium, right ventricle. Merry Christmas, reprobates, from lurid's family's Upper Midwest seventies architectural folly under remodeling in the woods. Due to airline bag loss we had no coffee this morning either and I had to soak my contact lenses in tap water with table salt, but it's since been made right.
I gues haven't said Merry Christmas in this thread? Merry Christmas.
I hear pink Himalayan salt is better.
I'm at my girlfriend's mom's house in Wasilla. She and her brothers are playing Phase 10 while we wait for dinner to be ready. There's plenty of coffee.
...in Ontario, where Rob Ford's brother is the Premier so it's a dark farce now.
Well, we did get some amazing Chinese food, but everyone was too tired to go to a movie, so it was kind of a half-Jewish Xmas.
24.1: Not that you asked for advice, but I tell people what they need to know from my perspective. Rather than being about her, my elevator pitch type summary is about me. I say something like "My mother has [$stage] Alzheimer's. She has been sick for a long time, and we weren't very close." (Meaning, I'm not freshly devatated, she is not "there" anymore, and I don't miss her like I would if we'd been close, so it's not a taboo subject for me.) I used to say she had early-onset Alz, my father was her caregiver, and that we weren't close. Right now, I say end-stage, which tends to stave off a lot of questions (with one notable exception). And I know you've alluded to your mother being ill before, but I'm glad she was able to go home, and the misidentification is hilarious. Hope your father is holding up OK - caregiving is hard, even with assistance. I used to get that a lot - whether she recognized me. I always bristle a little, since it sort of takes her illness and makes it about me. I know it's meant politely, to gauge how impaired she was, but I hated that line of inquiry more than anything. She hasn't recognized me as me in years, but the last recognition of me as someone familiar (um, four years ago?), she thought I was her sister, who is gorgeous, pleasant, and someone I admire greatly, so it was flattering. Mom was forever jealous of her, and they got along poorly as both children and adults, so it didn't make for the nicest of visits, but oh well.
39: The sun sets at 3:45 these days, so no.
Ydnew, I'm sorry things were tougher than they needed to be.
My kids are with my parents and brother and his wife while I am giving IV fluids to the cat at the yarn store where I work part time. There's a DSA party we may stop at on the way home, but I'm not sure how decadent I feel.
I didn't even know that was something you could do for values of "you" that didn't include veterinarians or their employees.
Is decadence compulsory at socialist gatherings?
Cats have pretty small legs and are covered in fur. How do you find a vein?
No. You just pull up a big bag of skin and stick in the needle. (The instructions were for subcutaneous fluids, not IV.)
OT: Is that Coin and Dagger thing appropriate for a twelve-year old? I forgot our Kindle's are linked.
I went to a friend's house today and brought the mashed potatoes. I am stressed about the drive up to Ontario on Thursday.
We were going to go to Ontario for Christmas because we understood that BIL and SIL were going to be there and we could visit with their kids. They changed their plans without letting us know and said they would not arrive until the 26th and couldn't I take an extra day off work etc. and leave on the 27th. Never mind that all of my targets for work are based on our results as of 12/31. So, we switched everything around, because they just wanted us to leave our gifts.
My SIL also texted me recently to say that she understood that I might need to mourn, but Christmas was a happy and exciting time for her kids and she didn't want my being sad to ruin her kids' Christmas, so I shouldn't feel pressured to come. She "just wanted to enjoy the holidays."
Looking forward to this trip so much. Argh.
ydnew - I posted my comment (slightly edited) that had been drafted earlier in the day and missed yours. I'm so sorry about your experience. Yuck.
There are productive, adult responses to the situation in 56, but I don't really know what they might be. I recommend getting her kids drums, kazoos, and Kidz Bop CDs for Christmas.
Also good are craft kits that involve liquids which stain.
ydnew, dalriata and bostonienne - much sympathy and solidarity and do not let the bastards get you permanently down, although temporarily down is perfectly fine and you should absolutely make sure you can take refuge in a nice warm bath with a glass of wine and a good book AWAY from unpleasant people.
we had a christmas miracle! stepdaughter brought various amazing agricultural delights from far so mexico in her luggage and there was a tag in her bag indicating it had been inspected but they didn't confiscate anything!!! astonishingly beautiful corn, beans and gorgeous cane sugar. i think the most beautiful christmas gifts i've ever received. my theory is that the inspector has a family background in mexico and knew the real thing on sight, out of respect let them through.
Possibly, the inspector is working without pay because of the shutdown and said, "Fuck it."
went through inspection weeks ago. :)
A couple of weeks ago, we went to the fancy new taco place and they had something called "street corn." It was pretty good.
Now we're back home in Anchorage and just ordered Chinese food.
54: it's actually just subcutaneous fluids, yeah. Not a big deal but it takes time.
And there isn't much more decadent than Selah on the karaoke mic. Nia did some well-bleeped (by her) Cardi B and Mara knows all the words to "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and sang along, but far from the microphone.
i have discovered there is leftover blood orange trifle, and *excellent* discovery. after a nutritious buttered-bread-and-luxury-anchovies dinner i plan to demolish some delicious wet cake.
i was extremely flattered that the italian at our christmas eve dinner tucked into seconds of the trifle. she never has seconds, and italians are up there with the english for appreciation of wet cake.
Thanks, dq. That food sounds wonderful. We got Chinese take out. Place was appropriately packed. They're usually done in 20 minutes, but it was an hour tonight.
55: The first Dagger and Coin book has lots of violence, including the slaughtering of an entire population. It's nominally medieval fantasy but the way states in it behave is more modern, including industrial genocide in the later books. I think there might be some sex in it under questionable circumstances, but maybe that's in the second book? One of the main characters is a nerdy "nice guy" who does exactly what you'd think a gamergate type would do when he gets power, which might be particularly worrisome when presented to a young male reader (or maybe it's a teachable moment). Also, the Kindle version contains the first book of The Expanse included for free, which also has lots of violence and maybe a little sex. In space! Roughly corresponds to the first season and a half of the TV show.
Ydnew, I'm sorry for your trouble. We're pretty certain our mother's dementia is mostly vascular: particular little competences get knocked out. But most of the time she knows perfectly well who we are. It's only sometimes when she's tired she starts reminiscing on the basis that I am her brother or sometimes, eirdlyy, that she got divorced. Even this is horrible enough for anyone who remembers her as she was. But it doesn't invite prod nosed questions from people who should know better
68: Someone left your cake out in the rain?
58: I went online to look up Kidz Bop CDs, and I think she might actually like that kind of music. I found the Wazoo amplified excessively loud kazoo and think I will buy the 3.5 year old a couple for his birthday this spring.
Amplified kazoo! You're good at this. I never knew that existed.
I never connected it to the 'euchre' which I had read about because I didn't know how to pronounce it properly
Did Euler play euchre?
BG, if you can't find any crafts with glitter, then at least wrap the presents in paper that has glitter slathered over it.
amplified kazoo - so strong, much respect.
Ours was nice and quiet, the two of us snuggled in bed and opened stockings after a quick dash to the living room. Presents in bed was very indulgent; I'll have to keep it in mind going forward.
Otherwise, we played a number of games, listened to White Christmas in the background, and had a tasty seafood dinner last night. It was special, if short. We'll head down to visit my brother this weekend, which should sate our need for small children ("nephews" of 2 and 3) to spice things up.
We're visiting and staying with my mom, who has some kind of short-term memory problem going on, possibly Alzheimer's (which her mother had, and in fact she goes to the same geriatric psych as her mother did). She's asked when we're leaving at least four times a day, sometimes twice within five minutes. I'm kind of impressed that she's managing all the things she does manage, but I don't know what the next step is going to be. She's on Aricept, which I understand isn't just handed out for fun.
My dad - who has been divorced from her for 26 years now - is spending a lot of time hanging out with her again, and their respective brain problems allow them to compliment each other (he has some form of Parkinson's, a bit of tremors. but no cognitive issues). It's really kind of weird to see them being so friendly, since that really wasn't my experience when I lived with them.
There are echos of my life from say 2013 through 2016 in that.
street corn
I think that's just elotes + the current trend that absolutely everything has to be called street food so we'll know that we're eating with the plain folk eat. Elotes in the street, blah blah something in the sheets.
I started posting pictures on instagram with sarcastic captions every time I saw something purporting to be street food, but then it's the time of year when everything bothers me.
the hardest part about being in Mexico is all the gorgeous fruit and vegetables sold on the street that I cannot eat, it is soooo painful (although how ill i'd be if i did eat it would be even more painful, i know). am now researching to a ridiculous degree how i'm going to grind this gorgeous corn post-nixitamalization ... delicious tortillas MUST BE MINE!!!!!
77: She used to send us cards with glitter. I am looking at kinetic sand or glitter slime for his birthday. Not sure which is worse and/or. Ore plausibly deniable that it is not a passive aggressive act.
82:. It was a very trendy place, for Pittsburgh. Had to have reservations to buy tacos.
The recipe for street corn should be -- place cobs of corn on the street until passing traffic flattens them into tortillas.
ydnew, that sounds appalling. So sorry. Hope everybody else had a good time. I'd wish you all a Happy New Year, but you'd think I was being sarcastic.