Stresses of the season

   Okay, in terms of Christmas we don't have much stress caused by it. We pick up a couple of presents and we are pretty much done. In fact we have honed down our obligations to few and far between.  We have dinner at my Nonna's Christmas eve, My parents' Christmas day. At some point I may or may not see my father, it depends on how paternal he feels a given year.
   Now Chris on the other hand has a set of obligations trying to draw him in. I feel like he is the Godfather.

This summer his best friend's older brother died.  Now C was out west for the funeral, but ever since then he has been after some pretty heavy pressure from their friends to get together and celebrate his life. Sounds nice, right? Except, the guy was 30 and drank himself into an early grave. As C says they will all be sitting around talking with awe about how he could party with the rest of them ignoring that it killed him, because that would be uncomfortable.

   Plus, other than Shawn he doesn't really talk to the rest of them since he stopped drinking.
Apparently that WAS the thing they had in common.

There are things every couple should not do together

It is different for every couple.  For example, my parents do not put things together in the room with each other. It is either a mom project or a dad project. My mother claims to have discovered this putting together their first "television unit".

In case you are too young to remember when TVs took a lot of space with big accessories.  Picture those covered in VHS tapes and that was my house until my parents were dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.  

Now mine with C is a little different. I hate driving with him. We are... how do I put this. Yeah, he's fucking nuts on the road. The road rage in him is strong. Plus he is a real aggressive driver. If I am unfortunate to have a run in with a driver like him they tend to get the old Trudeau salute.

And yet he is amazed when he cuts someone off and gets the finger. The easy solution would be for me to just drive, right? Well only if I tie and gag him in his seat. Not that am against bondage, but there is a time and place. He will not shut the fuck up and just let me drive. I actually love to drive and am a very good NON-AGGRESSIVE driver. I am not slow, or overly passive, I just don't think I win some fucking race by cutting some guy off to get there 2 minutes quicker. I value my and other lives more than those 2 minutes.

Don't get me even started on Christmas shopping when he is hungry.

Shopping, and cleaning...

Why do I look forward to the weekend again?  To relax?  To unwind?  No, to fucking clean and do holiday shopping.  I am using credit in hopes that I will pay it off with the money I am going to make over the holidays.
Why do people always say "Oh, I don't need anything" when they know you are broke.  I fucking hate that.  I gotta buy you something anyway, why not just tell me something that is within my price range rather than have to guess at what to get you, and waste money on something you are going to fucking hate?
I made out golden withe my parents thatnks to 75% off at Bombay company sale, and got a beautiful mantle clock for $50.  My mother loves the Bombay companies shit, so I'm sure she will love it.  I got my brother CJ a fifty dollar playstation card (okay it's lazy, but it is something he will use).  And for the drool boy, I got him one of those easels and chalk board with paints and shit.  My mother will love that one.  He isn't the swiftest with knowing what not to draw on.   But at least with washables (unlike the permanent marker he drew all over himself with the last time I was babysitting, before then sucking the ink dry) at least it will be easier to hide the evidence.
I have no fucking idea of what to get C.  What do you get a technophobic, fashion disaster?  *le sigh*. Well off I go to empty the dishwasher. Lucky along the way I will pass the fridge, and the lovely treat I bought for myself;)

Ghosts of Christmas past

For some reason I was thinking about my cousin and myself as little kids.  We were both watched a lot by my Nonna while our parents worked.  My Nonna has two kitchens.  One upstairs kitchen where everything is spotless, one downstairs, where still everything is spotless, but it does not have to stay this way.  This is the one she cooks in.  She also has a living room with her couch in the clear plastic slip covers  She DUSTS her couch.  

   There are two doors in my Nonna's house.  The front door which leads to a large foyer, opening to her plastic couched living room and french doors with open to her beautiful kitchen.  Then there is the side door which leads to the kitchen of good smells, and her sunken "den", and two rooms.  Growing up A and I spent many times napping on the den couch, playing, juice got spilled, crumbs dropped.  We lived in the den and second (which is really the only) kitchen.  When family would come over we spent time in the den.  Every Christmas that plastic would come off the couch and for one very tense evening Nonna's couch lived life on the wild side.  Bareback furniture.

Anyway, because A and I were about 4 and 5 and so used to fooling around at Nonna's we did not really grasp the impact of being allowed in the front door.  It felt like forever, but was probably only an hours of us getting told to "settle down" or "sit still" when finally Nonna said she would go down and put on a movie for us. My cousin got "Spice World" for Christmas, I can't remember what I wanted to watch, but we were arguing.      

     We ended up shoving each other and went right into the french doors guarding the "Good Kitchen".  As my mother stood up an entire glass of red wine down a cream coloured sofa with embroidered roses.  My cousin had a split lip and the back of my head managed to break the glass, yet it remained intact, with the perfect curved indent of the back of my head in the thick glass.  Surprisingly I was unhurt, but later as we sat watching "Spice World", A with a dishcloth full of ice pressed to her lip and a smirk that she got her choice of movie at the cost of a little blood we heard my Nonna directed the cleaning of the couch while assuring my mother it was fine, and that she probably had too much to drink.  My father arguing that it had more to do with two children going through a glass door.  

   The couch was never the same, and they had to get a new one.  All of which Nonna assured my mother was no big deal.  But every Christmas she mentions Jamie's head indented in the glass and the sofa.  "I loved that sofa."  

Happy new year

I have been a bad blogger. Sorry. The holidays have kept me crazy. I have to say I am having the best holiday season. It's nice not to be the odd man out over the holidays. C has been fucking awesome with letting me drag him from event to event. He didn't do the family thing, but anything friends related was fair games, so my cousin, who is also friends with some of my friends got to meet him. In typical A form she said that she was starting to think C was imaginary. She then told him he was coming to her wwedding. He shook his head. "It's so cute you think you have a choice.". Yeah, welcome to my crazy family. He's been talking a lot about next christmas and what we should do. I love that he assumes we will still be us next Christmas. I moved half my stuff into his place. I don't know what to do with the rest when my parents sell the house. I've already been told that they won't have room.

Yule

Yes, I did it.  Post exam I met up with Jake.
My mom is friends with Jake's mom.  They met before we were born.  My mom was in University with Jake's father.  By that time they already had Jake's older sister Kayleigh, and my mom used to kick about with them.  Anyway she went to theirs and I took the ride, since they live out of town.  Got TOTALLY drunk.  Jake has a "life-sized" Frosty.  Brilliant thing is it dances and will move it's lips to whatever you say in the microphone. That we could get this thing to say whatever we wanted became quite the game the drinker we got. Anyway, after one day of promising to never do that again I'm feeling much better. Mom asked me to got shopping with her. Now my mother has no control on spending, so every Christmas she takes out the amount she is going to spend and leaves her purse at home. So our last stop is to the LCBO. Behind the counter is this guy about 25. Anyway, we have about 600 dollars worth of booze on the table ( because my family is Awesome like that) and the guy asks my mother for I.D. She laughed, but he was serious. "this is my son.". So he asks her to take off her sunglasses then laughs. My mother looked at him and said "I'm going to pretend it is the wisdom you see in my eyes and not the crows feet that convinced you.". Poor guy had no idea what to say to that.

pie and christmas plans

I'm making steak and potato pie, from scratch, TYVM.  I would just like to say, as a boyfriend, I rock.

Mine is of course not going to look like this.  Mine will look more like something you are at first afraid to eat.  But it actually does taste good.  I have just never had the patience, or seen the fucking point in making something look so fucking perfect when all you are doing is eating it anyway.  C was off yesterday.  One of the "joys" of working for an American company is that, while you do not get Canadian holidays, you do get American holidays.  So it seems like he is off some random Thursday, but then gets asked to work Saturday to make up for the missed day.  In other words, he got royally fucked.

Anyway, I digress.  Yes, this blog post actually has a point:D  Surprise, surprise.  So C spent his day checking out the Canadian equivalent of "Black Friday" sales that a lot of retailers start on the Thursday.  C has never done the Christmas thing.  Was not part of his religion growing up.  So it came up a few weeks ago when my mom asked of I was bringing C to my Nonna's at Christmas.  I was not surprised at the emphatic refusal.  But he apparently thinks it is like being asked to a wedding and now he has to buy presents (awww, bless, who's a social retard?).  I assured him that no, you do not need to buy anyone presents, well other than yours truly, of course.
Well, shit, I correct myself.... yeah... no point at all.  Just the mindless rambling as usual:D.  Anyway, got distracted and did not post on time.  The pies were really fucking good.  And having no attachment to the blog post, but for my amusement, I got quite the laugh out of these pics.