Ick
Um. Chandler’s mom told him (as he was leaving the house for work) that she was canceling the dessert party. He asked why, and she said, “Because I’m having major surgery.” And walked out of the room. His family has been super-pissing him off. Now that Danica’s in town again, he’s finally realizing that she’s the favorite. He didn’t know why, until he asked me, and I explained it. Um, she’s the girl. She’s older and graduated from college. She’s not still sucking from the teat. She doesn’t get into trouble. She doesn’t smoke or carouse. She also won’t fuck strangers, or on the other hand, someone’s girlfriend. That we know of. All in all, she’s the favorite.
Oh yeah, we went to Malio’s for my holiday party. Both of us again looking super-nice. We met Danielle and Tito in the entry room, and were shown to our section of the restaurant. We were the first there, and were seated. And waited. Eventually everybody else came in, and we were forced to mingle, which was awful. Chris started doing that shit where he’s completely silent, not smiley, and complaining to me under his breath (kind of) that he doesn’t feel good or his feet hurt. Which I was acting like a shit at his party too, so I couldn’t really hold that against him. After a hideously long period of time, we were allowed to sit, and order. Our options were: White Lump Crabmeat Pasta, Blackened Grouper, Chicken, 11 oz. Prime Filet, or Lobster Tail. It came with a side dish, and we also had a full bar at our disposal. At some point, that new moron Mark started making out with his wife’s cleavage (she was wearing a reallllly slutty dress), and then the Orlando table started doing Jager-bombs. The four of us decided to leave at 10. We also got chocolate cake for dessert. Oh, also, all the new people had to give a speech, luckily there was background music, but it was still sucky. I had had a glass of wine on a stomach that had been empty for 8 hours, so I don’t really remember my speech, but I do remember most of the snarky fucks I work with being especially supportive and clapping harder than for most, so I’m pretty sure I embarrassed myself, and not in a rowdy drunken way. Oh shit, I get to leave in 20 minutes.
So, it’s the next day now, work’s passing relatively quickly.
We spent the past week just…working, and hanging with people, and shopping. I worked a half day Thursday, due to us getting our carpets cleaned at work, and got home at around 1. I sat in the family room and talked to people for awhile, cause per usual the house is filled with Chris’s family. After awhile I went in to his room and lied down for awhile, because I felt exhausted for some reason, and then I started pulling all of our clothes out of his closet and sorting through mine, making sure to leave his in a two foot high stack on the bed. Eventually, he came home from work, and we ended up getting rid of another two trash bags full of clothes (actually, they’re now sitting in my trunk). Friday was Christmas Eve and I didn’t have to work, though he did. I went to University Mall to pick up some last minute gifts for him and my mom, and then went to her house. Nobody was home, because she was out shopping with my aunt. I immediately noticed how much the house stank, and how filthy the kitchen was. It was especially bad because since my sister had come down the weekend before, she had done all of the dishes and helped my mother straighten, though she only went so far as to wipe down the outside of the fridge with a Mr. Clean sponge. But in one week, it was hell again. I set to work, placing gifts under the tree first. Then, I noticed the (I later found out, two days old) chicken carcass lying in a pan on the stove, and chucked that in the trash. Then I emptied the dishwasher, and began soaking and scrubbing the filthy ones in the full sink, so that I could do another load of dishes. I noticed dirty ones from Monday night, while I was cleaning my mother’s kitchen on Friday. Gross. While I was putting away clean dishes, I threw out the old, half-eaten candy socked away in all of our dish cabinets. I also noticed the crockpot, still full of carrots and grease from earlier that week, but wasn’t sure how to deal with it. I began cleaning out the nasty, nasty pantry, when my father came home from buying gifts for my mother. He asked me to wrap the two handbags and the leather coat he’d bought her, while he started up some laundry, and started cooking spaghetti. We worked together for awhile, him warning me that when my mother came home she would have a fit. See, she’s a terribly unclean person, and is only motivated to do something about it by other people. My father and sister, after years of this, have sunk to simply doing the work for her, degrading her while they do it, and harassing her constantly, and making cruel jokes in front of her. I myself have gone through this with Chris already, and occasionally still fall victim to it. My mother is blind to the uncleanliness of the situation, and when confronted by it, feels embarrassed and immediately goes on the defensive. Being that it was Christmas Eve though, I was prepared to greet my mother cheerfully, and act like I was doing her a service that she deserved. It worked. She came home to a bustling kitchen, me standing on a stepladder in the pantry, surrounded by the food I had emptied out of it, shouting “Merry Christmas!” and asking her if she could wipe down the walls and shelves of the pantry, since I have a problem with bug carcasses and cobwebs. When all was said and done, I had spent five hours cleaning a small portion of the kitchen. I had thrown out four-five garbage bags of infested or stale food. There are about 40 cans of Campbell’s soup and about 10 boxes of Betty Crocker dessert mixes in my pantry, none of it I was aware of, and probably none of it will get eaten. Ever. My mother goes to the grocery store at least once a week, buys just about anything that catches her fancy, and has to cram about 10-15 bags of groceries into the various kitchen areas at a time. She is not frugal, and she will never think she has enough. I’m starting to confront the fact that it is not a quirk, but a mental illness. She was actually fishing boxes of pasta out of the trash - ones that I had thrown out because I could see insects in them through the plastic window. It’s like dealing with a five year old. Anything I try to get rid of, I have to do it behind her back, so that she won’t rescue it and put it somewhere else. Occasionally, like maybe every six months if I’m lucky, she’ll get motivated and talk about throwing stuff out and going on a diet, etc., but it never really happens. She’ll make a day of trying to get rid of stuff, but she mostly just pushes it around, or moves it, or puts it out for a charity to pick up, misses their visit, and ends up keeping the stuff. It’s depressing. Especially because before she showed up, my father was pleasant to be around, but then he started making himself drinks, while trying to fix the power supply on the current crappy e-machine he has, which started pissing him off. Whenever he’s fixing something, he turns into an asshole, and hates being talked to in any way. By the time she got home, he was just a complete bastard, and started making fun of her while she and I were finishing the pantry together. I understand that he’s frustrated, and that he works hard while she spends the money and trashes the house, but being an asshole doesn’t help anything. I’m pretty sure that maybe if I moved back into my house and kind of, made myself my mom’s life-coach, maybe things could change. But then again, she spends so much time with my aunt and her kids, and that’s where a great part of the problem lies. They all just go shopping, or to theme parks, and watch tv, and eat garbage. But I can’t be my mother’s babysitter. I’m already looking forward to that when they actually get old. I should enjoy the years when they’re still relatively mobile and independent.
As I was finishing the last round of dishes (they were big and heavy, like a punch bowl that had been full of candy, and that crockpot, I didn’t want her to have to lift them) she was chiding me about not relaxing, and I had to keep myself from screaming, “Maybe if you were a bit responsible and got off your ass EVER, I wouldn’t have to spend Christmas Eve doing this!” The situation at my house has been heavily preying on my mind since I decided to fully leave it. As I’m trying to better myself, I’m trying to better my parents too. I also wanted to have a nice, clean Christmas. It just irks me that my mother manages to drag herself across malls and all of Orlando, but is unable to mop our kitchen floor. As I was leaving, I mentioned that I had thrown out that candy, and that she really needed to take better care of herself, since she could barely walk. She protested that she has no control over the arthritis in her knees. And I had to remind her again that her weight is making it worse. Literally, like a three year old. I’m almost desperate enough to sign her ass up for the Biggest Loser, but she’s not healthy enough. At one point, when my dad got his promotion, he mentioned getting her a personal trainer or something, but naturally the money has evaporated. And she eats junk food constantly and robotically, it’s always something, so I doubt it would work anyway, she’d just be the first person booted. Not a drop of will power, though amazingly stubborn.
I went back to Chris’s house, and hung with his family, and eventually Chandler came over, and then we went to sleep. This year, Chris asked if we could do Christmas morning with his family first, since his mother complained that if we weren’t there it would ruin the whole Secret Santa situation, like last year. Okay. I mentioned it to my parents, and we figured we’d be having our Christmas at around noon. This was the first Christmas morning I woke up at someone else’s house, I believe. That is, not a relative’s house, or more recently, my parents’. Chris and I got up at around 10 and took showers, and helped his mother cook, while everyone else was asleep. Apparently we had to wait for his brother Troy to come back from Gibsonton, where his ex-wife had moved. Eventually the other siblings woke up, and we had breakfast, and piddled around. Chris and I exchanged our gifts with each other. He got me: Serial Mom DVD, Clay Pigeons DVD, After School Special DVD, Mario Power Tennis gamecube game, new Beck cd, first Afroman cd, My Little Pony DVD, and a toaster oven for the apartment. I got him: a bunch of Best Buy DVDs, a jammy set, Crash Bandicoot game, Prince of Persia game, Family Guy 1 & 2, and the Mr. Horse action figure from Ren and Stimpy. I’m probably forgetting something.
We were starting to get antsy, waiting for Troy and his family to come over, because that meant my family was waiting for Christmas, when we normally do it in the early morning. When we finished a game of Mario Tennis, we noticed that it was 2:30, and we got really pissed. We had intended to spend most of the day with my parents, so that their Christmas would be pleasant and sociable, instead of just the two of them. I asked Chris if we could just leave the presents we were giving Missy and Ted there, and leave, and they could open them whenever. Missy convinced us to just exchange our gifts, sans Troy and Co., and the rest of the family could wait on them. Apparently, Troy and Co. had shown up, but he realized he had left something at his house, and was gone again. So his wife Mandy was nagging us to wait for him, and his kids were being loud and obnoxious. We started opening our gifts from Missy and Ted right when Troy came in the door. The limit is $50 per person, but because we teamed up, we spent $100 on them, and they spent $100 on us. We got them this bitchin VCR that they wanted, and this really cool Ripley’s Believe It or Not! coffee table book. They got us a silver IKEA tv stand on wheels that had three tiers. It looks almost like a deluxe dinner scene cart, as sad as it is of me to make that comparison. On it were bags of things, like 2 circular bright red bath rugs, a silver-rimmed diner/school clock, a white soap dish with multi-colored polka dots, these horrendous mammy/Aunt Jemima salt and pepper shakers, a little David and Goliath bag that has “Eat me” emblazoned on it, with a dog that’s pointing at it’s crotch, this weird blue porcelain penguin thing, some awful 50’s style book about periods that came with a tampon case, cute old-style aquatic magnets, a gold vase-style lamp, and some other bric-a-brac. Some of it was cool and thoughtful, some of it vile and embarrassing. Missy has a bizarre sense of humor. We gave Chris’s mom the new curling iron and vibrating slippers we had bought her, and Todd gave us some shitty movie with famous people in it DVD that had like Rutger Hauer and Delroy Lindo in it.
We drove to my house and walked in, apologizing to my parents. Obviously they had started cooking, and then left the food warming for awhile, except for the steaks, which had been marinating. We opened our gifts, and ate the food. For once, my mom had told me she hadn’t bought much, and this time she was telling the truth. I got this cute Christmas ornament with a Cheshire cat on it. I got excited when I unwrapped a Crown Royal box that said something about a personalized bag on the outside, but inside was a damn plush Aristocat (I’ve never seen the movie) that had a plastic “Emerald” in it’s collar. What the fuck? Luckily, the order form for the personalized Crown Royal bag was stuck to the box, so I think I’ll make use of that. I also got several books that I had put on my Amazon list to remember them, but hadn’t really wanted as gifts. A bunch of tacky socks were on the tree for me. There was a penguin tin that was filled with candy, in lieu of a stocking, despite the fact that my empty stocking had been hung up…To her credit, my mom did buy the things that I had mentioned whenever she asked what I wanted, which were Mario Party 6 and In Living Color Season One. We got my mom a box of Godiva chocolates, a Victoria’s Secret bath gift set, a Star Trek ornament, TV edition of Scene It, Season One of 24, and some other stuff. I know Chris opened the South Park Season Two DVD my mom made me leave at my house for him, and she got him an X-Men wall calendar and an X-Men desk calendar, but I don’t remember much else. Oh, I also got him the hard-back Opus graphic novel. We got my dad a robe, a mustang ornament, some Pink Panther coasters, some liquor-filled chocolates, Viva La Bam Season One, and WildBoyz Season One. My mom also got him a new shower head, and a bunch of other stuff. He was an ass the entire time. I’m used to him deriding all of the gifts my mom gives him, because he’s very hard to buy anything for, so she gives him anything that might appeal to him so that he’ll have gifts to open, but he just sees it as wasting money and having more crap in the house. This year, he bitched about every gift that he opened, as if he hadn’t read the tags, since he usually attempts to act appreciative of the things we buy him. I questioned that, until Chris told me that during dinner, he accidentally got a whiff of my dad’s glass and almost threw up. Since Chris’s family held us up, my dad spent Christmas morning and afternoon getting plastered. It’s usually whiskey. Merry Christmas. After we opened our gifts, I figured my dad would like to watch WildBoyz (relatively tame), since I had just recently found out that he somehow saw Jackass, and went out and bought the movie and made my sister and her husband watch it with him, apparently crying due to how hysterical he found it. But I soon found out, that Shelby didn’t like the movie and had made him turn it off, and that meant he wanted to watch it with us now. So Chris and I both pulled out a book for each of us to pretend to be engrossed in, and prepared to flinch our way through “watching” Jackass: The Movie with my parents. We hadn’t seen it, but I had heard things. It wasn’t soooo bad. My mom left the room when that thong guy part came on. It was awful listening to them cursing (my family has been remarkably white-bread about that kind of stuff, so I’m awkward about it in front of them). I was okay I guess, until I heard, “Oh my god! I’m about ta fuckin SHIT myself!” and then I just left the room, pretended to get a phone call, and Chris and I left to “go see a movie.” Fun.
After we’d been home for awhile, Traci called, and we went to their place and exchanged presents. We got her a cosmopolitan set (two martini glasses, drink mix, book, and metal tray) and we got him Soul Calibur II for the X-box that Traci had gotten him for Christmas. There was a mishap involving their gift for Chris (basically, she got him a Zim figure from Hot Topic, returned it to get a better figure from Suncoast, that was sold out, then went back to Hot Topic, and the original was gone), but she got me some nifty socks and a hippo puppet, and a hippo ballerina ornament, and they got us this neat, stand-up black ashtray that we’ll be putting on our new porch. We then played Mario Party, which they whupped us at, and then Chandler came by, to get away from his family.
Sunday, I cleaned up our room a bit, while Chris played City of Heroes, and then we picked up Traci and J.D. from work so we could go see The Life Aquatic. Unfortunately, it wasn’t playing at Channelside, so instead we stopped by Chris’s house to get Mario Party, and then went to their place. Monday, we both went to work. At lunch time, I went to Amscot to get the money order for the apartment, and then gave it to the complex. After we got off work, Chandler came over, and we were hanging out when Chris’s mom called us all into the living room, where the family showered us with a shitload of practical stuff for the apartment. Everybody kept gloating about all the stuff that we never would have thought of, but I had. I actually have a list of most of the stuff we need, and it is detailed, but I figured buying that stuff could wait until after we heaved our shit in there. We’re majorly running out of room right now. Anyways, they gave us a kitchen trash can, filled with toilet tissue, paper towels, light bulbs, and a little bathroom trash can, and a bag of towels (Chris told his mom Forest Green, but they’re Olive Green, which isn’t bad), and a set of measuring cups and co., and some spatulas and ladles, and some scrubbing pads, and some plastic hangers, and one of those rubber pot holder things, and a utensil organizer, and some toilet bowl cleaner and a brush, and it was all so very sweet. It just really emphasized to me how different our families are, since lately all I can think about is that I’m getting closer to the date when my father might never speak to me again, and my mother is secretly planning on buying things for us later on, while his mom and siblings and in-laws are buying us just about anything we would ever need. Chandler’s mother is providing us with silverware and I believe some bookshelves, and Kat offered us some plates. We’re being overwhelmed by everybody’s generosity and support; everybody except my family, conceivably the wealthiest people I directly know. It says a lot.
I have the feeling I could go home today, married to Chris and having just won the lottery, and my parents would still be opposed to me moving out, my father because he’s a self-centered patriarch, and my mother because it upsets my father. Sick. I guess they’ll just have to get over it. It’s really fucked up though, that I’m almost tempted to just leave everything at my house, so I can avoid any confrontation and awkwardness, but that wouldn’t really solve anything, and would just prolong the current situation.
So after the showery goodness, we played some more Mario Party, and then played Apples to Apples with the siblings. Fun.
So I’m sick today. I woke up like every hour last night, practically delirious and thirsty. This morning my throat felt…grungy. My voice has gotten progressively rougher, and I’ve been kind of light-headed and out of it. Everything tastes like shit, and I have no appetite. I’m still functional though, and I’m trying to stay that way. I’d like to save any “sick” days until maybe next February or March, when I’ll be desperately in need of a day away from here. Danielle showed up to work yesterday and complained about how bad she felt, so Nicole had a temp come in, and she sent Danielle home for the day. That’s two personal days off, in addition to a day and a half of holiday, plus we’re getting Friday off. Danielle took that vacation in September (was it that long ago??) and Nicole went on vacation earlier this month, and Adrienne was out for 2 weeks, since she only works 3 days a week, but gets the same number of vacation days. And I beat up on myself because of that dentist appointment. Oh well. So Danielle just came in my office and said she’s feeling worse and might not be in tomorrow. Guess what, bitch, I can say the same. I’m gonna be super-pissed if we both feel like shit, but I end up coming in because she won’t.
So, that’s been what’s going on. We need to start setting up utilities and all that fun stuff, fun stuff which makes me anxious. I haven’t really been able to enjoy the prospect of moving, because frankly it’s a lot of work and hassle, and headaches, but hopefully things will improve within the next month or so. I still feel silly for renting a truck to haul maybe three large pieces of furniture, but we really don’t have much in the way of options. I’m sure it will be easier that way. God, it’s only 3:15.
Oh yeah, we went to Malio’s for my holiday party. Both of us again looking super-nice. We met Danielle and Tito in the entry room, and were shown to our section of the restaurant. We were the first there, and were seated. And waited. Eventually everybody else came in, and we were forced to mingle, which was awful. Chris started doing that shit where he’s completely silent, not smiley, and complaining to me under his breath (kind of) that he doesn’t feel good or his feet hurt. Which I was acting like a shit at his party too, so I couldn’t really hold that against him. After a hideously long period of time, we were allowed to sit, and order. Our options were: White Lump Crabmeat Pasta, Blackened Grouper, Chicken, 11 oz. Prime Filet, or Lobster Tail. It came with a side dish, and we also had a full bar at our disposal. At some point, that new moron Mark started making out with his wife’s cleavage (she was wearing a reallllly slutty dress), and then the Orlando table started doing Jager-bombs. The four of us decided to leave at 10. We also got chocolate cake for dessert. Oh, also, all the new people had to give a speech, luckily there was background music, but it was still sucky. I had had a glass of wine on a stomach that had been empty for 8 hours, so I don’t really remember my speech, but I do remember most of the snarky fucks I work with being especially supportive and clapping harder than for most, so I’m pretty sure I embarrassed myself, and not in a rowdy drunken way. Oh shit, I get to leave in 20 minutes.
So, it’s the next day now, work’s passing relatively quickly.
We spent the past week just…working, and hanging with people, and shopping. I worked a half day Thursday, due to us getting our carpets cleaned at work, and got home at around 1. I sat in the family room and talked to people for awhile, cause per usual the house is filled with Chris’s family. After awhile I went in to his room and lied down for awhile, because I felt exhausted for some reason, and then I started pulling all of our clothes out of his closet and sorting through mine, making sure to leave his in a two foot high stack on the bed. Eventually, he came home from work, and we ended up getting rid of another two trash bags full of clothes (actually, they’re now sitting in my trunk). Friday was Christmas Eve and I didn’t have to work, though he did. I went to University Mall to pick up some last minute gifts for him and my mom, and then went to her house. Nobody was home, because she was out shopping with my aunt. I immediately noticed how much the house stank, and how filthy the kitchen was. It was especially bad because since my sister had come down the weekend before, she had done all of the dishes and helped my mother straighten, though she only went so far as to wipe down the outside of the fridge with a Mr. Clean sponge. But in one week, it was hell again. I set to work, placing gifts under the tree first. Then, I noticed the (I later found out, two days old) chicken carcass lying in a pan on the stove, and chucked that in the trash. Then I emptied the dishwasher, and began soaking and scrubbing the filthy ones in the full sink, so that I could do another load of dishes. I noticed dirty ones from Monday night, while I was cleaning my mother’s kitchen on Friday. Gross. While I was putting away clean dishes, I threw out the old, half-eaten candy socked away in all of our dish cabinets. I also noticed the crockpot, still full of carrots and grease from earlier that week, but wasn’t sure how to deal with it. I began cleaning out the nasty, nasty pantry, when my father came home from buying gifts for my mother. He asked me to wrap the two handbags and the leather coat he’d bought her, while he started up some laundry, and started cooking spaghetti. We worked together for awhile, him warning me that when my mother came home she would have a fit. See, she’s a terribly unclean person, and is only motivated to do something about it by other people. My father and sister, after years of this, have sunk to simply doing the work for her, degrading her while they do it, and harassing her constantly, and making cruel jokes in front of her. I myself have gone through this with Chris already, and occasionally still fall victim to it. My mother is blind to the uncleanliness of the situation, and when confronted by it, feels embarrassed and immediately goes on the defensive. Being that it was Christmas Eve though, I was prepared to greet my mother cheerfully, and act like I was doing her a service that she deserved. It worked. She came home to a bustling kitchen, me standing on a stepladder in the pantry, surrounded by the food I had emptied out of it, shouting “Merry Christmas!” and asking her if she could wipe down the walls and shelves of the pantry, since I have a problem with bug carcasses and cobwebs. When all was said and done, I had spent five hours cleaning a small portion of the kitchen. I had thrown out four-five garbage bags of infested or stale food. There are about 40 cans of Campbell’s soup and about 10 boxes of Betty Crocker dessert mixes in my pantry, none of it I was aware of, and probably none of it will get eaten. Ever. My mother goes to the grocery store at least once a week, buys just about anything that catches her fancy, and has to cram about 10-15 bags of groceries into the various kitchen areas at a time. She is not frugal, and she will never think she has enough. I’m starting to confront the fact that it is not a quirk, but a mental illness. She was actually fishing boxes of pasta out of the trash - ones that I had thrown out because I could see insects in them through the plastic window. It’s like dealing with a five year old. Anything I try to get rid of, I have to do it behind her back, so that she won’t rescue it and put it somewhere else. Occasionally, like maybe every six months if I’m lucky, she’ll get motivated and talk about throwing stuff out and going on a diet, etc., but it never really happens. She’ll make a day of trying to get rid of stuff, but she mostly just pushes it around, or moves it, or puts it out for a charity to pick up, misses their visit, and ends up keeping the stuff. It’s depressing. Especially because before she showed up, my father was pleasant to be around, but then he started making himself drinks, while trying to fix the power supply on the current crappy e-machine he has, which started pissing him off. Whenever he’s fixing something, he turns into an asshole, and hates being talked to in any way. By the time she got home, he was just a complete bastard, and started making fun of her while she and I were finishing the pantry together. I understand that he’s frustrated, and that he works hard while she spends the money and trashes the house, but being an asshole doesn’t help anything. I’m pretty sure that maybe if I moved back into my house and kind of, made myself my mom’s life-coach, maybe things could change. But then again, she spends so much time with my aunt and her kids, and that’s where a great part of the problem lies. They all just go shopping, or to theme parks, and watch tv, and eat garbage. But I can’t be my mother’s babysitter. I’m already looking forward to that when they actually get old. I should enjoy the years when they’re still relatively mobile and independent.
As I was finishing the last round of dishes (they were big and heavy, like a punch bowl that had been full of candy, and that crockpot, I didn’t want her to have to lift them) she was chiding me about not relaxing, and I had to keep myself from screaming, “Maybe if you were a bit responsible and got off your ass EVER, I wouldn’t have to spend Christmas Eve doing this!” The situation at my house has been heavily preying on my mind since I decided to fully leave it. As I’m trying to better myself, I’m trying to better my parents too. I also wanted to have a nice, clean Christmas. It just irks me that my mother manages to drag herself across malls and all of Orlando, but is unable to mop our kitchen floor. As I was leaving, I mentioned that I had thrown out that candy, and that she really needed to take better care of herself, since she could barely walk. She protested that she has no control over the arthritis in her knees. And I had to remind her again that her weight is making it worse. Literally, like a three year old. I’m almost desperate enough to sign her ass up for the Biggest Loser, but she’s not healthy enough. At one point, when my dad got his promotion, he mentioned getting her a personal trainer or something, but naturally the money has evaporated. And she eats junk food constantly and robotically, it’s always something, so I doubt it would work anyway, she’d just be the first person booted. Not a drop of will power, though amazingly stubborn.
I went back to Chris’s house, and hung with his family, and eventually Chandler came over, and then we went to sleep. This year, Chris asked if we could do Christmas morning with his family first, since his mother complained that if we weren’t there it would ruin the whole Secret Santa situation, like last year. Okay. I mentioned it to my parents, and we figured we’d be having our Christmas at around noon. This was the first Christmas morning I woke up at someone else’s house, I believe. That is, not a relative’s house, or more recently, my parents’. Chris and I got up at around 10 and took showers, and helped his mother cook, while everyone else was asleep. Apparently we had to wait for his brother Troy to come back from Gibsonton, where his ex-wife had moved. Eventually the other siblings woke up, and we had breakfast, and piddled around. Chris and I exchanged our gifts with each other. He got me: Serial Mom DVD, Clay Pigeons DVD, After School Special DVD, Mario Power Tennis gamecube game, new Beck cd, first Afroman cd, My Little Pony DVD, and a toaster oven for the apartment. I got him: a bunch of Best Buy DVDs, a jammy set, Crash Bandicoot game, Prince of Persia game, Family Guy 1 & 2, and the Mr. Horse action figure from Ren and Stimpy. I’m probably forgetting something.
We were starting to get antsy, waiting for Troy and his family to come over, because that meant my family was waiting for Christmas, when we normally do it in the early morning. When we finished a game of Mario Tennis, we noticed that it was 2:30, and we got really pissed. We had intended to spend most of the day with my parents, so that their Christmas would be pleasant and sociable, instead of just the two of them. I asked Chris if we could just leave the presents we were giving Missy and Ted there, and leave, and they could open them whenever. Missy convinced us to just exchange our gifts, sans Troy and Co., and the rest of the family could wait on them. Apparently, Troy and Co. had shown up, but he realized he had left something at his house, and was gone again. So his wife Mandy was nagging us to wait for him, and his kids were being loud and obnoxious. We started opening our gifts from Missy and Ted right when Troy came in the door. The limit is $50 per person, but because we teamed up, we spent $100 on them, and they spent $100 on us. We got them this bitchin VCR that they wanted, and this really cool Ripley’s Believe It or Not! coffee table book. They got us a silver IKEA tv stand on wheels that had three tiers. It looks almost like a deluxe dinner scene cart, as sad as it is of me to make that comparison. On it were bags of things, like 2 circular bright red bath rugs, a silver-rimmed diner/school clock, a white soap dish with multi-colored polka dots, these horrendous mammy/Aunt Jemima salt and pepper shakers, a little David and Goliath bag that has “Eat me” emblazoned on it, with a dog that’s pointing at it’s crotch, this weird blue porcelain penguin thing, some awful 50’s style book about periods that came with a tampon case, cute old-style aquatic magnets, a gold vase-style lamp, and some other bric-a-brac. Some of it was cool and thoughtful, some of it vile and embarrassing. Missy has a bizarre sense of humor. We gave Chris’s mom the new curling iron and vibrating slippers we had bought her, and Todd gave us some shitty movie with famous people in it DVD that had like Rutger Hauer and Delroy Lindo in it.
We drove to my house and walked in, apologizing to my parents. Obviously they had started cooking, and then left the food warming for awhile, except for the steaks, which had been marinating. We opened our gifts, and ate the food. For once, my mom had told me she hadn’t bought much, and this time she was telling the truth. I got this cute Christmas ornament with a Cheshire cat on it. I got excited when I unwrapped a Crown Royal box that said something about a personalized bag on the outside, but inside was a damn plush Aristocat (I’ve never seen the movie) that had a plastic “Emerald” in it’s collar. What the fuck? Luckily, the order form for the personalized Crown Royal bag was stuck to the box, so I think I’ll make use of that. I also got several books that I had put on my Amazon list to remember them, but hadn’t really wanted as gifts. A bunch of tacky socks were on the tree for me. There was a penguin tin that was filled with candy, in lieu of a stocking, despite the fact that my empty stocking had been hung up…To her credit, my mom did buy the things that I had mentioned whenever she asked what I wanted, which were Mario Party 6 and In Living Color Season One. We got my mom a box of Godiva chocolates, a Victoria’s Secret bath gift set, a Star Trek ornament, TV edition of Scene It, Season One of 24, and some other stuff. I know Chris opened the South Park Season Two DVD my mom made me leave at my house for him, and she got him an X-Men wall calendar and an X-Men desk calendar, but I don’t remember much else. Oh, I also got him the hard-back Opus graphic novel. We got my dad a robe, a mustang ornament, some Pink Panther coasters, some liquor-filled chocolates, Viva La Bam Season One, and WildBoyz Season One. My mom also got him a new shower head, and a bunch of other stuff. He was an ass the entire time. I’m used to him deriding all of the gifts my mom gives him, because he’s very hard to buy anything for, so she gives him anything that might appeal to him so that he’ll have gifts to open, but he just sees it as wasting money and having more crap in the house. This year, he bitched about every gift that he opened, as if he hadn’t read the tags, since he usually attempts to act appreciative of the things we buy him. I questioned that, until Chris told me that during dinner, he accidentally got a whiff of my dad’s glass and almost threw up. Since Chris’s family held us up, my dad spent Christmas morning and afternoon getting plastered. It’s usually whiskey. Merry Christmas. After we opened our gifts, I figured my dad would like to watch WildBoyz (relatively tame), since I had just recently found out that he somehow saw Jackass, and went out and bought the movie and made my sister and her husband watch it with him, apparently crying due to how hysterical he found it. But I soon found out, that Shelby didn’t like the movie and had made him turn it off, and that meant he wanted to watch it with us now. So Chris and I both pulled out a book for each of us to pretend to be engrossed in, and prepared to flinch our way through “watching” Jackass: The Movie with my parents. We hadn’t seen it, but I had heard things. It wasn’t soooo bad. My mom left the room when that thong guy part came on. It was awful listening to them cursing (my family has been remarkably white-bread about that kind of stuff, so I’m awkward about it in front of them). I was okay I guess, until I heard, “Oh my god! I’m about ta fuckin SHIT myself!” and then I just left the room, pretended to get a phone call, and Chris and I left to “go see a movie.” Fun.
After we’d been home for awhile, Traci called, and we went to their place and exchanged presents. We got her a cosmopolitan set (two martini glasses, drink mix, book, and metal tray) and we got him Soul Calibur II for the X-box that Traci had gotten him for Christmas. There was a mishap involving their gift for Chris (basically, she got him a Zim figure from Hot Topic, returned it to get a better figure from Suncoast, that was sold out, then went back to Hot Topic, and the original was gone), but she got me some nifty socks and a hippo puppet, and a hippo ballerina ornament, and they got us this neat, stand-up black ashtray that we’ll be putting on our new porch. We then played Mario Party, which they whupped us at, and then Chandler came by, to get away from his family.
Sunday, I cleaned up our room a bit, while Chris played City of Heroes, and then we picked up Traci and J.D. from work so we could go see The Life Aquatic. Unfortunately, it wasn’t playing at Channelside, so instead we stopped by Chris’s house to get Mario Party, and then went to their place. Monday, we both went to work. At lunch time, I went to Amscot to get the money order for the apartment, and then gave it to the complex. After we got off work, Chandler came over, and we were hanging out when Chris’s mom called us all into the living room, where the family showered us with a shitload of practical stuff for the apartment. Everybody kept gloating about all the stuff that we never would have thought of, but I had. I actually have a list of most of the stuff we need, and it is detailed, but I figured buying that stuff could wait until after we heaved our shit in there. We’re majorly running out of room right now. Anyways, they gave us a kitchen trash can, filled with toilet tissue, paper towels, light bulbs, and a little bathroom trash can, and a bag of towels (Chris told his mom Forest Green, but they’re Olive Green, which isn’t bad), and a set of measuring cups and co., and some spatulas and ladles, and some scrubbing pads, and some plastic hangers, and one of those rubber pot holder things, and a utensil organizer, and some toilet bowl cleaner and a brush, and it was all so very sweet. It just really emphasized to me how different our families are, since lately all I can think about is that I’m getting closer to the date when my father might never speak to me again, and my mother is secretly planning on buying things for us later on, while his mom and siblings and in-laws are buying us just about anything we would ever need. Chandler’s mother is providing us with silverware and I believe some bookshelves, and Kat offered us some plates. We’re being overwhelmed by everybody’s generosity and support; everybody except my family, conceivably the wealthiest people I directly know. It says a lot.
I have the feeling I could go home today, married to Chris and having just won the lottery, and my parents would still be opposed to me moving out, my father because he’s a self-centered patriarch, and my mother because it upsets my father. Sick. I guess they’ll just have to get over it. It’s really fucked up though, that I’m almost tempted to just leave everything at my house, so I can avoid any confrontation and awkwardness, but that wouldn’t really solve anything, and would just prolong the current situation.
So after the showery goodness, we played some more Mario Party, and then played Apples to Apples with the siblings. Fun.
So I’m sick today. I woke up like every hour last night, practically delirious and thirsty. This morning my throat felt…grungy. My voice has gotten progressively rougher, and I’ve been kind of light-headed and out of it. Everything tastes like shit, and I have no appetite. I’m still functional though, and I’m trying to stay that way. I’d like to save any “sick” days until maybe next February or March, when I’ll be desperately in need of a day away from here. Danielle showed up to work yesterday and complained about how bad she felt, so Nicole had a temp come in, and she sent Danielle home for the day. That’s two personal days off, in addition to a day and a half of holiday, plus we’re getting Friday off. Danielle took that vacation in September (was it that long ago??) and Nicole went on vacation earlier this month, and Adrienne was out for 2 weeks, since she only works 3 days a week, but gets the same number of vacation days. And I beat up on myself because of that dentist appointment. Oh well. So Danielle just came in my office and said she’s feeling worse and might not be in tomorrow. Guess what, bitch, I can say the same. I’m gonna be super-pissed if we both feel like shit, but I end up coming in because she won’t.
So, that’s been what’s going on. We need to start setting up utilities and all that fun stuff, fun stuff which makes me anxious. I haven’t really been able to enjoy the prospect of moving, because frankly it’s a lot of work and hassle, and headaches, but hopefully things will improve within the next month or so. I still feel silly for renting a truck to haul maybe three large pieces of furniture, but we really don’t have much in the way of options. I’m sure it will be easier that way. God, it’s only 3:15.