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Nov 24 2000 - 1:10 pm

Obligatory Humorous Thanksgiving/Family Angst Entry

And now, the Obligatory Humorous Thanksgiving/Family Angst Entry, presented with limited commercial interruptions:

I spent yesterday with my family. Beer was helpful.

I arrived home around one o clock yesterday. I brought my mom a floral arrangement, which the family cat immediately proceeded to eat. Mom was actually a lot more mellow than I expected her to be, which was surprising. She has the biggest house among our family members, which means that she hosts Thanksgiving and Christmas. Usually this causes her a lot of stress. Vacations do that to her too. If she's not coordinating the efforts of my brothers and I to get the house ready, she's usually screaming from the kitchen in her best Mrs. Constanza voice (I am NOT kidding about that) that she's cancelling everything and calling off the whole affair. When I was a wee lad and the family would go on vacations, it became kind of a ritual that my mom would cancel the vacation two or three times before we left. Of course, an hour later, we were all in the family mini van on our way to Wisconsin Dells, happily munching down the bologna sandwiches she lovingly made as she screamed from the kitchen. Sometimes I wonder how my dad dealt with it. Now, there was a patient man.

But, not this year. Mom was relaxed, cool. She didn't even want to bother doing dishes, so she had bought paper plates. It was the only thing she had moderately even freaked out about. The pattern on them was "too Christmas" for her tastes, but when I looked at them they were definitely holiday neutral. Still, this bothered her, and I wondered whose judgement she feared. Her sister's? She calmed down after I told her that she shouldn't worry about the opinion of a woman whose culinary skills were limited to a cold casserole dish consisting of (yes) raw cauliflower and mayonnaise. She laughed and seemed to relax after that.

At this point, luckily, I had two beers in me. I was mixing cider and Rolling Rock to great effect, and it definitely helped me muddle through what came next: My younger brother Bob pointlessly tried to engage me in a political discussion. With his usual tact, he opened with "You didn't vote for that cheater, did you?"

"Great. Here we go," thought I.

Now, I love Bob. He's generally got a good heart. The poor boy has a couple of major faults, however, that don't earn my utmost respect.

1: He doesn't work. Simply won't get a job.

2: He lives in my mom's basement. (See #1)

3: He is almost always high.

Yeah. See why I moved out? I don't know how my mom deals. Anyway, that whole issue is worth 43 diary entries unto itself, so let's leave that alone for now. Anyway, Bob somehow voted Republican. Yes, a pot-smoking, jobless layabout voted Republican. I couldn't believe it either. I had no idea Bush could connect with that particular demographic. Oh, he had his reasons: Gore is a puppet, Gore isn't trustworthy, he (Bob) supports lower taxes (what taxes does Bob possibly pay?), and, oh, my favorite...Bob wants the anti-missle shield built.

See, Bob ain't too up on the issues. Otherwise, he might have known that the SDI missle defense is supported by Clinton, and was likely to be backed by Gore as well. I was able to defuse the conversation by telling him that I, too, supported the SDI, which is kind of true. That took him by surprise, and probably saved the conversation from degenerating into a shouting match. At this point, I was getting pretty sick of the whole rigamarole, and I was able to justifiably put a stop to the debate when Bob used the word "ecoconomic."

Poor kid. He should read more.

So, the relatives arrived finally, and the rest of the evening went along just fine. The beer, of course, assisted in this. My cauliflower casserole aunt rallied against the oncoming HDTV, the internet, and modern life in general. It took the entire family to convince her that the internet wasn't going away anytime soon, and through a twisted series of logical leaps (which in retrospect, was impressive) I managed to convince her that resisting HDTV would make her a communist, an idea she was not too fond of, and she relented.

Her and Bob at a table is a real conference of the Nobel Prize committee.

So, everyone left with a plate of food, and after some cheek kissing, I decided to give my oldest friend Nick a call. We made plans to head to a local pub. I went to his place, and I met his two lovely cousins. I found myself wishing for relatives like this. They were both well-spoken, intelligent and pretty. One of them was a dancer, I'm not sure what the other one did. Somehow, the conversation turned to plenary indulgences, and one of the girls suggested we consult a dictionary to look up plenary. If I weren't involved and in love with Sally, my own intelligent and beautiful girl, I would have swooned on the spot. Nick and I left, my head filled with jealous thoughts about what the conversation must have been like at their dinner table.

About the only thing my family consults is the TV guide.

Nick and I arrived at the local bar, a lounge type place with couches and a lovely back room with a fireplace. Over pints of Bass, we caught up, and had the obligatory political discussion. I found out Nick voted for Nader, which I decided not to hold against him. We had a second pint, and ended the evening playing a fantastic mechanical baseball type pinball game. It was a relic from circa 1984, but I hadn't had that much fun playing a game in a while.

We left, and he invited me to a party tonight. I went home, and stole inside my mom's house to load up on a plate of leftovers. I also decided to take the rest of the beer back to my apartment.

Might come in handy if Bob ever visits.

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