Where were we? Christmas morning.
Christmas morning was later than ever in 2003. Most of the B-town gang were up at my place until well after 3am playing board games, sipping Crown, and wrapping presents. ‘Twas fun, but I miss being able to wake up at 5 or 6am, all excited about the rest of the day.
My stocking was cool. I got socks in my sock. And silly string. Gotta get silly string. But no batteries this year. That was really weird. This was the first year I put batteries on my list, but the first year I didn’t actually GET any batteries. I figured Santa would eat that up.
Mama opened her gift and loved it. We gave her a Kodak EasyShare CX6200 2.1 Mpixel camera. From the time she opened the box until the day I left, she had taken something like 400 photos. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging around, cleaning up a bit, and preparing for the evening festivities at Papa’s.
We got to Papa’s a little after 5. Everyone says it was more chaotic than ever this year, but I didn’t notice. Sometimes I worry that I’m oblivious to things I shouldn’t be on holidays. I go to Papa’s and I just soak it all in and enjoy myself, no matter what’s going on. I did, however, notice how unbelievably annoying one of my cousins’ boyfriend was. He called Lauri “ma’am” and she ignored him. He called her “sir,” and at that point all witnesses knew that if it hadn’t been Christmas, this boy would have been in shit most unescapable and deep.
Dad and Cathy were supposed to work, but they made arrangements to be late so that we could open our presents together. B and I hadn’t brought our gifts to them, though, since we were planning to go to their house at Crystal Beach the next day. Dad got me, among other things, a spindle of DVD-Rs. I know it was probably tough for him to buy that for me rather than keeping them and buying a DVD-R/RW drive for himself.
Of course, as of this writing, he has bought himself just that. And, for the first time since I was able to somewhat control my own PC hardware, he has better stuff than I do. Congrats, Dad, you’re catching up. Now you just need to squeeze some broadband out of that salted beach wiring.
Christmas night, we all went to K&C’s for chill-time. Kevin and Valerie were there. It was great to get to see them before the wedding, since we weren’t able to really hang out with them on wedding night.
B went back to Mama’s house, but I stayed and got really tanked on TWO screwdrivers. Something was wrong, and I didn’t realize it until too late. I had just eaten a bunch of seafood gumbo at Papa’s. Strike one. I had a headache after Papa’s, so I took some ibuprofen a few hours before the drinking. Strike two. The most available drink was Takka vodka. Yech. Strikes three and four. Before I was drunk enough to realize it, I was hugging their toilet and crying behind a locked door. After a few trips back and forth between the commode and the couch, several times whining for Taylor to turn down Castlevania, my beloved brother and priceless friends walked me to the Jumpmobile, putting a rag on my head and a bucket in my lap. I remember everything that happened, which should tell you that I was not drunk enough to be that sick. I was not drunk sick, I was sick-sick. People were (lovingly) giggling at me, and I remember Taylor snapping, “Shut up! He’s sick!”
I have the best little bro in the world.
Taylor put me in the bed, but I got up to gargle again. Bonnie asked what was wrong, and I told her. Several times. I whined a lot. I remember having a bitch of a time getting naked.
The first thing I heard the next morning was “You were ANNOYING last night!” from the sexy girl to my right. I was more than hung over. I was in a bad, bad place. My face looked dead and bloated. The bags under my eyes were the size of Luzianne teabags. I managed to drink enough water to at least be ready for transport and we trekked down to the beach.
There I discovered my new favorite holiday food: Cajun-fried turkey. After a few pounds of that, I still looked like hell, but brand new. Thanks again, Dad.
We ate, talked, exchanged more gifts, and then watched a few minutes of Bruce Almighty before heading back to Beaumont. That night, Jenn came over and mama made gumbo. No seafood. Others came over for more board games as well. Joey came, but nobody had mentioned gumbo, so he ate his Whataburger chicken strips instead.
The plan was to go see Lord of the Rings that night, but Taylor wouldn’t get off work in time. So we instead waited until the next night. Joey was upset because he wouldn’t be able to go Saturday night. As Mitch says, “You can’t please all the people all the time, and last night, all those people were at my show.” We’ll make it up to him someday.
Saturday was Mama’s family’s Christmas party. As always, it was a blast. We have started a new tradition for the last few years. We each bring one universal gift and then draw numbers. Number one gets to pick from all of the wrapped gifts. Number two can then open a different present or steal number one’s already opened gift. It is, by far, more fun than opening a bunch of gifts and stuffing them all in the car. B was last, and really wanted to steal Candyce’s blanket, but she didn’t want to be mean. Uncle Dennie said, “Aw, hell no. You go for what you want.” So B stole, and Candyce ended up with a gift she liked even better. Now I’m sitting at B’s house, wrapped up in said blanket.
Then we went to the wedding. It was cool. I hadn’t seen any of those people in quite a while. It was fun to catch up on their lives as best as we could before being jerks and leaving to go see the flick. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we only had so much time in town and had to stick more or less to the plan.
The movie was good, if oddly-paced.
Sunday we took some pictures to Uncle Harley and Aunt Ninny of my oldest cousin Sebastian. They had to put him to sleep a few weeks before, and it was obvious that it had all but ruined their holidays. Uncle Harley plans to have his Hollywood-by-way-of-Colorado sculptor friend do a complete 3-dimensional statue of J.S. Bark and needs all the pictures he can get his hands on.
After visiting there, B and I went to Papa’s while Taylor changed Uncle Harley’s bass strings. B was so tired that she fell asleep on their couch. I had brought over a piece of paper with some writing on it that I thought might possibly be my Maw Maw’s, but as it turns out we’re almost certain it’s Mama’s.
The trip back wasn’t bad, but I was unusually sleepy. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so B took over a little south of Hunstville. We got to B’s, went to bed, woke up, had lunch, and then I returned to Plano.
Little else of importance has happened since then. I New Year’s Eved with Rob and Vicki. We saw the Mad Mexicans and then partied at Mike & Monica’s. I’m told there is video of me playing DDR. It’s probably a lie.
I interviewed for a job last Friday, and I’ll talk more about that once I know more.
I’m about to go have lunch with B, pick up Johann at the uhr-port, and then get ready for SOUL GLOW practice. Lemonjello can’t wait to start gigging again.