moriath

My dad's sister and her husband are in jail. For using/making/distributing crystal meth.

As if that's not awesome enough? They also had a three hour standoff with the police.

And people wonder why that side of the family isn't invited to the wedding?

Anyone else have crazy family Thanksgiving stories?

A random collection of thoughts on a dreary Tuesday morning afternoon:

-I think I figured out how I'm cooking the cornish game hens for Thanksgiving. I have a recipe in my Dr. Suess cookbook for Who-Roast-Beast which calls for stuffing mushrooms under the skin of a fryer chicken. Assuming that the hens have skin, I think I'm going this route so I can say I've eaten Who-Roast-Beast

-My mom is officially coming to visit December 7-9. Yay! Hopefully work is giving me that time off (requested it yesterday). Now I need to figure out some stuff for us to do.

-WEIRD dream last night/this morning. Dunkin' Donuts was doing some sort of donut sampler promotion, where you'd get to try one of each of their donuts. Billy and I would go there with Chris and Misty (even though they're in Ohio and we're in New York...) and we would each order a sampler. This meant we ended up with 24 donuts between 4 people. I never ate more than one at any given sitting (we went there at least three times in the dream).

Some morning I need to wake up early enough to go to Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast (the last two times I've been awake early enough to justify going out to buy breakfast, Billy has been awake, too, and we've gone to our new favorite diner. Mmm, diner)

-I am so far behind on the invitations it's not even funny. I might have to re-order some paper 'cause some of these things may be irreparably screwed up. Oy.

Talked to my mom today and of course the election came up. For the record, somehow I came out of a family of conservatives. My mom's a lifelong Republican, and my dad claims he's a Democrat and certainly doesn't like Bush but hasn't cast a ballot for a Democrat the entire time I've been politically conscious.

When I talked to Mom on Monday, she wasn't sure who she was voting for, or if she would even vote. She didn't really like McCain, but certainly wasn't going to vote for Obama, and it wouldn't really matter anyway since Michigan is reliably Democratic.

Today she told me she figured out why Obama rubbed her the wrong way. He reminded her too much of Jimmy Carter, an ineffectual president, since he was smiling all the time. I was like, WTF, he's going to be a bad president because he's happy?!

She also wished that race and gender hadn't come into the election (fair enough) and that his acceptance speech sounded more like it was on behalf of his race than for what he stands for. I pointed out that McCain invoked the fact that this was a win for African-Americans in his concession speech, and then Mom asked if he even is African-American. Apparently she was hung up on the fact that his mom was a white woman from Kansas.

AND THEN she says there's still lots of questions about him - whether he's a Christian or a Muslim and I cut her off right there and said that he's a Christian, totally Christian.

"But then why does your dad say he asked to be sworn into the Senate on a Quran?"

In my head: Since when do we ever listen to what Dad says?

To my mom: "He wasn't sworn in on a Quran. He was sworn in on his own Bible."

The conversation ended shortly there after. I threw the phone across the room and just hung my head muttering "Jesus Christ."

How the hell did I come from my family? My parents are conservative people. Always have been. They've never been particularly politically active, either. I vaguely remember going with my mom to the polls once as a kid, and she wouldn't let me go in the voting booth with her because voting is a private matter. Then I just so happened to be back in Holland for this year's primary so we voted together - her in the Republican line, and me in the Democrat (where I voted for Hillary Clinton, after briefly considering writing in Stephen Colbert, since the Michigan primary didn't matter anyway).

I, on the other hand, regularly write to my representatives about various political issues. The most exciting thing for me about turning 18 was getting to vote for the first time (the 2002 was just a few days after my birthday and I got to vote for Michigan's first female governor). More than once I've considered getting into politics as a career, whether as a politician or in a supporting position like political speech writer. During my breaks from work last night, I wandered down to the concourse at Rockefeller center to see the cool setup NBC news had. If Billy and I hadn't had our pizza-date, I would have been watching the election reporting live.

Where on Earth did all of this come from? Most other politically-minded people I know learned it from their parents. I'm some weird anomaly.

It's no secret that my dad and I have had a...contentious relationship for the past 23 years or so. There have been lots of knock down, drag out fights between us over the years, but in the last two or three that relationship has mostly been on the mend. Sometimes I still think he's a bonehead, but for the most part, he's a good guy.

I was talking to him on the phone today since yesterday was his birthday (no, I'm not a bad daughter. I called and left a message, but they just changed phone service so there was some weird stuff going on with the machine), and in updating him about life I mentioned that every time I get off the subway to go to work, I'm greeted by an advertisement for the museum featuring Jim Henson and various Muppets, including Gobo, Wembley and Sprocket! And then I complained that the various museums are too darn expensive. So Dad asked that if he gave me $50 for my birthday, would I go to the museum. I told him of course I would, but he didn't have to because he and Mom already gave me $200 so I could fly back to Ypsi for my bridal shower this month, but he's insisting.

So for my birthday, Billy and I are going to the Museum of Modern Art. Thank you, Dad :-)

I'm working on another original story ~gasp~ Two original stories started in one year! This is (seriously) a record for me.

It's about zombies. I am loving it much more than I was loving my erotic novel. I'm still keeping that one around; it's very possible I'll still finish it and try to publish it. But way too often I find myself NOT IN THE MOOD to write angst/smut/whatever.

So now I'm writing about high schoolers fighting zombies. OMG will I ever need a pen name if I try to publish both of these.

Getting a little bored at home. But at least my cats are settling in and not freaking out too much any more. They still don't like the dog (poor Coyote was SNEEZED on the other day by the dog!), but she's a big dog and they're little cats, so it's understandable.

Oh, found out something crazy about my mom yesterday: she has a crazy conspiracy theory that Japan wants to take over the United States. They're inundating us with their manga and anime and "so many" people are learning their language. And why would so many (white) Americans want to do that when Japan is such a racist country? They're going to destroy our economy and blackmail America into forcing us to accept waves of Japanese immigrants and they're going to take over the west coast.

MY MOTHER IS INSANE.

Going to see my grandparents today, then meeting with the officiant tomorrow, ordering bridesmaid dresses on Tuesday, LEAVING FOR NEW YORK ON WEDNESDAY. HOLY CRAP.

Apparently no one in my family eats real food anymore. Or maybe they never did and I've just lived away for so long I've forgotten?

Seriously, the only entrees in the house are one giant effin' porterhouse steak, and some frozen Digiorno pizzas. And I'm pretty sure my brother would attack me with a pizza cutter if I dared make one of his pizzas.

Everything else in the house is snack food. Moderately healthy snack food (mmm, watermelon!), but not enough to eat as a meal.

And yet, that is what I've been expected to live on since I got home on Tuesday night.

I am so hungry.

It's also probably why I'm so tired even though I haven't done anything but sit in the garage, tending the family's garage sale all day.

Plz to be giving me food now, kthxbai.

Oh, also, family? Please mail in the check to repay my loan. Like you said you were going to A WEEK AND A HALF AGO. No wonder they've been calling 3+ times a day.

Me=not happy camper.

Apparently this weekend (or at some point, but this weekend seems logical since I will be home) Dad and I are going to have to have A Talk.

Mom warned me about it tonight. Apparently Dad is rooting for his family to be invited to the wedding.

I was actually stunned speechless for a moment. Then all I could come up with was "What is there to talk about?"

Apparently my dad admits that his family isn't particularly deserving of an invitation, but I should invite them anyway.

( The gory details of why I HATE these people and thus don't want them anywhere near me on MY DAY )

In short: the only "Crafts" at my wedding will be myself, my parents and my brother. Seriously.

Opening night was last night. My least anticipated one. Ever.

I came out after the show to see my parents and Billy. They all loved me...but it was a unanimous agreement that 90% of the rest of the show sucked. Either there were mic troubles, or the plot was incomprehensible or...everything just sucked.

I just keep telling myself I only have to put up with this shit for two more days.

But it was nice seeing my parents. They gave me money! I mentioned to them that I had blown through way too much money in my bank account in the last two weeks from eating out for at least one meal every day (I made sure not to mention that "way too much" was $300). Between getting paid yesterday and the money they gave me, it's now like I only spent $60 this month, a much more manageable sum.

Call is supposed to be at five tonight. We go on at eight. I'm going to pull a diva move and be late for call. Because there is no reason that call should be longer than the actual show is.