"Christmas is a time for family."
Ought those words to seem so ominous? My family worries me sometimes, but I suppose I had to get it all from somewhere.
Sadly, my belovedest cousins were unable to make our Christmas gathering last weekend, but their parents, lovely individuals, showed up, and my uncle, and honourary cousin, joined us all in acting immature while he could. We get segregated usually, at these gatherings, and the kid's table--actually, by now kids ought properly to be enclosed in quotation marks, I suppose. It depends how you define adulthood. Anyhow, the kid's table is generally far more interesting. I got called over to the other table to boast, once again, of my English award, and felt like I had accidentally stumbled into a business meeting. They were always trying to talk politics too. "I'm all for the death penalty. Gimme the button. -- What about mistakes? -- I'm not for them." Mum still refuses to believe uncle Pat means this--which seems to me a little naive. The man is a cop--he's seen enough scum for such an attitude to be very understandable. We turned the talk to hockey and he told us of the time he broke his rib from being cross-checked--"yeah, well, he's my buddy. No wonder no one wants to play hockey with us, eh?" We have plans this summer for a massive road hockey showdown with his family--am I going to my grave? If I die, Tourmaline gets my notebooks to dispose of as appropriate.
We derived far more fun from the jokes in our Christmas crackers than such fumbling attempts at humour warranted, and had an interesting discussion on the true nature of the penguins/bananas/airplanes on the plastic game pieces in my youngest cousins's cracker--her so aptly nicknamed by her classmates 'her royal sugar-highness.' ("C'mon, sugar high --kick in now!") While we all turn to coffee for morning solace, little she, not yet free of the danger of stunting her growth (which, her growth, that is, was an reprehensibly dominant topic of conversation for a good hour or so) needs must rely on hot chocolate. With marshmallows. "Do you have cake with that too?" asks Benoit, and condemns marshmallows, especially the melting ones, as unecessarily squishy. This is a funny word in a French-Canadian accent. I told him that he shouldn't worry, as one doesn't step on aforesaid marshmallows and squish them with one's toes, and he looked at me oddly and edged quietly away. Everybody always does. No, joking, only normal people do that--and I don't know many of those.
He also had issues with the dessert. "You're eating parfait--it's not brainy," his sister remonstrated, and then this evolved into a discussion of how to measure the IQ of a dessert.
We talked of King Kong and "those classic island people -- they're always there, eating each other and sacrificing themselves to their gods. It's amazing they're ever any left."
We talked of soccer: "We kicked the ball and kicked each other." "I'm a small guy, so the only thing I had going for me was I was crazy. So anytime anyone came near me I booted the ball at their face."
And her royal sugar-highness told a story about something or other she vaguely remembered "It was funny. I can't remember why." and she hadn't been entirely sure what was going on "I think I also had a brownie that I was eating so that also distracted me." Something about a television show with two kids "who seemed to find it perfectly normal to be talking to a pineapple." For some reason we thought it was a good story. I can't remember why. I was also eating dessert at the time...
We discussed school and the books we were forced to read; those Quebec writers are apparently..well..Benoit told us of a story they were made read about a gentleman a little too...fond...of a, well, of a sheep. It made me think of Blackadder. BAA! Apparently their classes were all about deviant pornography. Suddenly 21 Great Stories doesn't seem so bad anymore. Imagine trying to write an essay about that. I would laugh too much.
Gifts--we had birthstone bracelets, and I got birdie socks and the heir apparent got cat socks --"your socks can eat my socks" -- and pyjama pants, which seems to be turning into some sort of tradition. I have about six pairs of pyjama pants, as relatives keep on giving them to me. I'll bet you anything mum's been telling them I sleep all the time. Certainly, I pass out greatly often at home, because it's home, and because if I stayed up to 2am here like I do at school, I'd keep them all awake. And I can't do what I did in high school and get up at 6:30am to compensate, for where to go? The library is closed that early...maybe Starbucks is open? I might start trying that, to get my circadian rhythms back in some semblance of order. I think I've collapsed enough now to make up for the hysteria of schoolwork taken too seriously that abused my rest so much.
I've been working pzza a little. I had the entire store to run myself all day yesterday. It was a bit of a ghost town. I cleaned the oven. I cleaned the other oven. I cleaned the dough machine. I cleaned the sink. I cleaned the salad fridge. I cleaned the main fridge. I cleaned the cash register. I cleaned the napkin holder. I cleaned the tip jar. I cleaned...I was so bored. Ghost town for hours and hours...I had enough of a crowd in the afternoon to make $10 in tips-well, $9.95, but 10 sounds more impressive...holidays are good considering many days we made just 37 cents in the summer.
Apparently I have a bizzare way of dicing tomatoes. At least, one customer exclaimed "That's how you cut tomatoes?!"
"I don't have a way I cut tomatoes," I responded. "I, when at all possible, avoid the vile oozing things like the bloody alien flesh they resemble. Nastly, drippy, oozing things...they're like the Borg of the vegetable world."
It was good enough for a toonie! :) The smiling helps with the tips...distracting them with my feminine wiles...we girls always make more tips than the guys and we mock them for it. 'Sfun.
I think Leprechaun may have found an individual to room with us in her absence this winter. Last I heard, she still needed to ask the floor mother if she minded living with a guy--she said she didn't think I'd care as I was so 'meh' about most things. I said as long as he let me watch my hockey then I was fine. Anyway, he seemed normal. I guess he'll need a nickname. I'll spend this next while thinking them up for my nearest, dearest, and acquaintances, in emulation of Tourmaline. Normal names? Who needs them?
We made pie today, Tourmaline and I. We also developed an excessive amount of associations with that influential spice, NUTMEG. Consult the point at infinity if you desire further details on that score.
Sadly, my belovedest cousins were unable to make our Christmas gathering last weekend, but their parents, lovely individuals, showed up, and my uncle, and honourary cousin, joined us all in acting immature while he could. We get segregated usually, at these gatherings, and the kid's table--actually, by now kids ought properly to be enclosed in quotation marks, I suppose. It depends how you define adulthood. Anyhow, the kid's table is generally far more interesting. I got called over to the other table to boast, once again, of my English award, and felt like I had accidentally stumbled into a business meeting. They were always trying to talk politics too. "I'm all for the death penalty. Gimme the button. -- What about mistakes? -- I'm not for them." Mum still refuses to believe uncle Pat means this--which seems to me a little naive. The man is a cop--he's seen enough scum for such an attitude to be very understandable. We turned the talk to hockey and he told us of the time he broke his rib from being cross-checked--"yeah, well, he's my buddy. No wonder no one wants to play hockey with us, eh?" We have plans this summer for a massive road hockey showdown with his family--am I going to my grave? If I die, Tourmaline gets my notebooks to dispose of as appropriate.
We derived far more fun from the jokes in our Christmas crackers than such fumbling attempts at humour warranted, and had an interesting discussion on the true nature of the penguins/bananas/airplanes on the plastic game pieces in my youngest cousins's cracker--her so aptly nicknamed by her classmates 'her royal sugar-highness.' ("C'mon, sugar high --kick in now!") While we all turn to coffee for morning solace, little she, not yet free of the danger of stunting her growth (which, her growth, that is, was an reprehensibly dominant topic of conversation for a good hour or so) needs must rely on hot chocolate. With marshmallows. "Do you have cake with that too?" asks Benoit, and condemns marshmallows, especially the melting ones, as unecessarily squishy. This is a funny word in a French-Canadian accent. I told him that he shouldn't worry, as one doesn't step on aforesaid marshmallows and squish them with one's toes, and he looked at me oddly and edged quietly away. Everybody always does. No, joking, only normal people do that--and I don't know many of those.
He also had issues with the dessert. "You're eating parfait--it's not brainy," his sister remonstrated, and then this evolved into a discussion of how to measure the IQ of a dessert.
We talked of King Kong and "those classic island people -- they're always there, eating each other and sacrificing themselves to their gods. It's amazing they're ever any left."
We talked of soccer: "We kicked the ball and kicked each other." "I'm a small guy, so the only thing I had going for me was I was crazy. So anytime anyone came near me I booted the ball at their face."
And her royal sugar-highness told a story about something or other she vaguely remembered "It was funny. I can't remember why." and she hadn't been entirely sure what was going on "I think I also had a brownie that I was eating so that also distracted me." Something about a television show with two kids "who seemed to find it perfectly normal to be talking to a pineapple." For some reason we thought it was a good story. I can't remember why. I was also eating dessert at the time...
We discussed school and the books we were forced to read; those Quebec writers are apparently..well..Benoit told us of a story they were made read about a gentleman a little too...fond...of a, well, of a sheep. It made me think of Blackadder. BAA! Apparently their classes were all about deviant pornography. Suddenly 21 Great Stories doesn't seem so bad anymore. Imagine trying to write an essay about that. I would laugh too much.
Gifts--we had birthstone bracelets, and I got birdie socks and the heir apparent got cat socks --"your socks can eat my socks" -- and pyjama pants, which seems to be turning into some sort of tradition. I have about six pairs of pyjama pants, as relatives keep on giving them to me. I'll bet you anything mum's been telling them I sleep all the time. Certainly, I pass out greatly often at home, because it's home, and because if I stayed up to 2am here like I do at school, I'd keep them all awake. And I can't do what I did in high school and get up at 6:30am to compensate, for where to go? The library is closed that early...maybe Starbucks is open? I might start trying that, to get my circadian rhythms back in some semblance of order. I think I've collapsed enough now to make up for the hysteria of schoolwork taken too seriously that abused my rest so much.
I've been working pzza a little. I had the entire store to run myself all day yesterday. It was a bit of a ghost town. I cleaned the oven. I cleaned the other oven. I cleaned the dough machine. I cleaned the sink. I cleaned the salad fridge. I cleaned the main fridge. I cleaned the cash register. I cleaned the napkin holder. I cleaned the tip jar. I cleaned...I was so bored. Ghost town for hours and hours...I had enough of a crowd in the afternoon to make $10 in tips-well, $9.95, but 10 sounds more impressive...holidays are good considering many days we made just 37 cents in the summer.
Apparently I have a bizzare way of dicing tomatoes. At least, one customer exclaimed "That's how you cut tomatoes?!"
"I don't have a way I cut tomatoes," I responded. "I, when at all possible, avoid the vile oozing things like the bloody alien flesh they resemble. Nastly, drippy, oozing things...they're like the Borg of the vegetable world."
It was good enough for a toonie! :) The smiling helps with the tips...distracting them with my feminine wiles...we girls always make more tips than the guys and we mock them for it. 'Sfun.
I think Leprechaun may have found an individual to room with us in her absence this winter. Last I heard, she still needed to ask the floor mother if she minded living with a guy--she said she didn't think I'd care as I was so 'meh' about most things. I said as long as he let me watch my hockey then I was fine. Anyway, he seemed normal. I guess he'll need a nickname. I'll spend this next while thinking them up for my nearest, dearest, and acquaintances, in emulation of Tourmaline. Normal names? Who needs them?
We made pie today, Tourmaline and I. We also developed an excessive amount of associations with that influential spice, NUTMEG. Consult the point at infinity if you desire further details on that score.
posted by Athaira at 11:00 AM
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