Gonzai Gallery

Christmas Eve, Mike didn't snark too much, except for complaining about our artificial tree.  I told him if he was willing to go out, buy a tree, ship it to my house, put it up, decorate it, take it down after Christmas, take it to recycling and do that *every year*, then sure, we’d have a ‘real’ tree. There were no more comments about the tree.

Christmas…the younger nephew was obsessed with building Lego sets and barely acknowledged anyone. The older one was obsessed with their latest game system (4th system, for those counting) and wouldn’t do anything else. I wound up reading the guidebook to my Kindle because everyone but the little guy was busy playing video games. My brother only acknowledged me to make openly snarky remarks (“people who have *real* jobs don’t work Christmas week”, collecting anything is a sign of mental illness, etc) and finally at dinner, he launched several insults in quick succession at me, I snapped back, and he told me to leave. Then Mom was upset, because I was her ride home so if I left she felt she had to leave and she didn’t want to go, so his in-laws had to talk him into letting *our mother* stay. I doubt I’ll be invited back anytime soon and honestly, I don’t want to go. I’ve had enough crap from Mr 1%.

I found out, as I was trying to get out the door to go to gaming today, that I'm babysitting tonight. I was supposed to be at gaming until 10, I left right after the Kentucky Derby and came home just as the boys were dropped off, except they want dinner and I already ate. I had no idea if they were going to want dinner or not so I went ahead and ate at gaming. So the boys are off with Mom for dinner and I am to have the dogs settled and a game set up when they come back. They want to play Endeavor. No way that ends before anyone's bedtime. But all of this might have worked out a little if, I don't know, someone told me I was babysitting more than a couple hours before I was supposed to do it?

I shot some pool. I think the last time I did was when my brother first bought his table, so that'd be ten years ago or so. But I shot a couple games with my nephews today and was surprised to discover I'm better at it than I thought. I still have the same problem I did back in the days of my youth, that being that while I can see the immediate shot, I can't visualize where the cue ball will end up afterwards. I can always sink the first shot, but there's rarely a second one available to me. All the same, I did much better than I expected at sinking the first shot and nearly ran the table on my older nephew at 8-ball. The cutthroat game took longer, because both boys kept missing any shot and bringing balls back to the table, but eventually I put that one away as well.

Now if I could just work on the whole spatial recognition thing...

Here I sit and wait for the Dr Who special...not patiently, I assure you! It's already been a Doctor-ful weekend, as I recorded several specials from BBC America and one of my gifts was the Series 5 DVD set. Also landed Series 1 of Luther, Ticket to Ride: Asia, 7 Wonders, and Transeuropa. That part of the haul was good. Unfortunately, my sister-in-law bought a bunch of clothing for Mom and I and I'm pretty sure not a single one of them fits. And Mike bought some bathroom fixtures for us with the intent of installing them, but somehow he had managed not to notice we had the bathroom redone in August. Oops. The boys were thrilled to pieces with their huge haul of Beyblades and Legos (of which we only produced a third or so), and the dinner turned out well despite Mom's insistence that she knew better how to cook a prepared meal than whoever had prepared it in the first place. It took a lot of work but most things only got cooked once, and except for the gravy not for overlong. But it took a lot of oversight!

We just got home from Mike's house, where it's tough to walk around with all the Beyblade & Lego detritus on the floor. Not safe to walk around either, as the boys are engaging in Nerf gun battles with their other aunt and her hubby. I did manage to finally get Mike to try some games, teaching him Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride, and he really liked TTR. I know because he interrupted Jeff's piano recital later to tell me he'd figured out what his mistake in the game was and how he'd fix it next time and beat me. Yeah, admit it, you liked that game! And after a lot of too-rich food and a lot of one-handed piano playing, we're home. Just in time for Packers v Dr Who. Wait...

Right after I posted last night, Mom came home. With my nephews in tow. School had been cancelled again and Mom was on grandson duty for at least another 24 hours. So instead of getting some sleep, I was shanghaied into Dominion and a late night. Then this morning, it took me over an hour to get to work due to traffic, then when I got to the office it turned out we had no internet at the office. You don't know how dependent your office is on the net until it's gone. We couldn't get much of anything done all day and there's no guarantee we'll have the net back tomorrow. Sheesh.

I honestly can't remember the last time I set foot in a shopping mall. And I'm sure when I did, it was a local mall where the eyeglass shop was open on holidays and thus able to repair my frames on Thanksgiving. I really don't like malls.

But today I went. I was instructed that what my younger nephew Jeff really, really wanted for his birthday was Star Wars Legos. Except his mother has no idea which ones he does or doesn't have, and I only had a week to come up with something. My PT rescued me by suggesting 'The Lego Shop' at Arundel Mills. I had no idea there was such a thing. So after a few laps around the mall (theappropriate  entrance number was obscured, so I went right past it) I found the right section and found the store. Packed tight with under-10s. The clerk asked if I wanted to join the 'Lego Club', I told him I hadn't been in a mall in over 5 years. He put me down as a 'no'.

But in any event I now have a Tri-Fighter or something or other, with a gift receipt just in case. The kid better like it - I went to a mall for him!

As much as I can, anyway. Managed to escape babysitting Friday, because I had a show Saturday no one wanted me loading the van while stepping over kids at 5am. But didn't sleep well, and got up early for the show. Seems Annapolis has changed quite a bit in the last 6 years or so - it looked nothing like it did the last time I was there. Tons of new developments and business complexes, etc, which have kind of ruined the whole historic thing the town had going on. Anyway, my helper for the day was Cecil, who is my nephews' second cousin. He was a ton of help, and there were a few times I really needed it. The kids at the school were very helpful as well, I was completely packed and loaded out 20 minutes after the show ended. Awesome. Oddly, I sold out of...The Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions, Oklahoma Sooners and South Carolina. Huh? In two shows, I've sold 1 Eagles and not a single baseball ornament. Weird. Ordinarily I'd have been thrilled with the sales - second best total I've ever had - except that the best show I ever had was last year in the same place, in the snow and rain, and I was down 25% from that show. All in all, I made very little money at arts and crafts this year and it's just as well I decided not to run it as a 'business' this year. The numbers just don't warrant it.

Got home and huddled, because I'm getting a cold and I was definitely overheated after the show. Watched Auburn/SC until it got out of hand, then the Merlin finale and some Spooks. Down to one ep of Spooks left. Slept 12 hours straight in the hopes of losing the cold, but I don't think it helped, I'm stuffy today. I took Mom to PetSmart for dog food, and the place was packed with critters. Lots of dogs including an incontinent Lab, a talkative greyhound a teensy husky pup. The adoption crew for the day was there trying to home rabbits. And the whole lot of them were completely upstaged by...a goat. Yes, someone brought a goat to PetSmart. Esther is a 7 month old La Mancha dairy goat with incredible calm. Even with dogs sniffing her all over, she dozed off. Talked to her owners, Esther was bottle-raised in the house after being ill when she was a week old, and even now she lives in a shed attached to the house and spends half her time in the house. She's so people-acclimated she's already going to nursing homes. She was our highlight of the day :)  We picked up some seafood (crabs!) and went home to settle in and wait for the Ravens/Steelers game. Was going to watch the last Spooks, but it turned out instead of having eps 7 & 8, I have two copies of 8. Eesh. So I indulged Mom's sudden crush on Matthew Morrison (CBS Sunday Morning did a segment on him) and played the Glee pilot for her. Now waiting, semi-patiently, for THE BIG GAME. Nervous now...

My elder nephew, Jackson, dragged my brother around the neighborhood for over two hours yesterday, eventually netting over 10 pounds of candy. Unfortunately for him, he got braces a couple months ago. So he dumped everything out, his mother read the list of what he wasn't allowed to have, and his brother, father and yours truly gleefully collected all the goodies Jack can't have. (Major scores of Laffy Taffy, Starbursts, Skittles and 100 Grand bars. Me happy. Jack not.)

Yesterday was a weird day at work - our California counsel was in town and working in the cube across from me most of the day, so I actually had to do busy work all day. My hands did not like this. Then all the attorneys wanted to go out drinking after work. I didn't. However, I had found out earlier in the week that Mom had once again told Mike & Janine I'd babysit for them without asking me, or even mentioning it until two days beforehand. So I was able to get out of the pub crawling, as I had been, in the words of one attorney, 'nephewed'. We took the little guys to Applebee's, then came home and played Dominion until Clone Wars came on. The boys really like that, apparently.

The boys had us up early this morning, wanting to play more Dominion, then wanting to try 'Killer Bunnies'. But Mike had said they'd come back for the boys 8:30-9, so I didn't want to start another game. They showed up for the kids at 10:30. Then Mike decided to pick a fight with me over next week's crab feast - it's been on Sundays for 10 years, but this year it's on a Saturday and I made the mistake of asking why the change. He went off on me. Now...probably won't bother going. Mike has made it very clear over the past year that he doesn't like me and doesn't want me at his house, so gaming sounds much better to me than a day of abuse.

After they left, we went shopping - I went for shoes & slippers, wound up with several tops of various weights from July to January. Seem to have a lavender thing going. Then grocery shopping, a trip to the gym, catching up on TV (only Haven left) and now watching the Ravens pre-season game. (Just a very nice touchdown scored on 4th down by the Men In Purple. Awesome.) Eureka had another great line - James Callis' character was asked if he was hallucinating, he said yes, I see a tall blonde in a slinky red dress. Nearly put me on the floor LOL.

Tomorrow, back to the usual. I should go to the Keys game, as I haven't gone all year. But I'll probably talk myself out of it again.