checkin in w/ the sandbox for the holidays from your parents'/relatives'/in-laws' house

i'm in my wife's grandparents' house in northern cali, sup

damn, that sounds kinda dope

it is very nice here! where you at homie

in chicago, i didn't go home this year

i hear chicago is lovely this time of year anyway

ha, fuck you

i've been meaning to tell you that after being lukewarm on its prospects, i think the stump album is absolutely amazing. there's no thread to bump on the box tho.

that's what's up

knoxville

watching drunks fighting each other on TruTV

pittsburgh

love my parents but kind of hate being here

I'm in Florida and I want to go home.

being here is fun just as long as my sister & my brother's family are too. we load up on beer & wine everytime we're all down here together.

Once they go home, the place is kinda bleah and I'm waiting to fly back to Portland.

Co. Offaly.

Haven't actually been outside in three days. It's blowing a gale.

really really really want to go back to london now

really very jealoud of everyone who gets to spend xmas alone

*jealous

i want you back in london! yesterday i got super frustrated with no-one around to go for a walk or to the pub with. :/

took the ferry home, the whole trip took like thirteen hours

gonna have nut roast

the 27th is the best day. walks and pubs then! maybe a stride across hampstead heath at some point?

xp

Christmas alone, so far, has ruled. Dad somewhat annoyed that I would rather spend it anywhere else but home and with anyone else but him and my sister I've done that and... no.

gonna have nut roast

― judith, Sunday, 25 December 2011 13:11 (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

^^ cool, different, festive
where are you at judith, i can never work out where you're from

wassup ya'll from south jerz

Good morning! Yesterday South Florida was the warmest part of the country -- the warmest Christmas Eve in recent memory too. Spent it at my cousin's house.

bout to celebrate jewish christmas w/some friends: dim sum and a movie, baller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTq20prt0K8

merry christmas ya'll

IT'S SMILING AT ME

one day gonna start a thread about racist moments in otherwise forgivable films

Co. Wicklow here. Presents exchanged (I got socks again!), the turkey just went in the oven, my Dad is watching the same bulletins over and over again on Sky News, I'm about to go for a run. Don't think this scene has changed one bit in at least five years.

wassup ya'll from south jerz

― nice catch cuauhtemoc blanco niño (dayo), Sunday, December 25, 2011 1:58 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Permalink

5-year-old gave me a coffee cup w/ her red handprint on it, I gave her Meet Me in St Louis; good deal

Where you at again, Mr. Stephenson #2? Hanging in Carmel with my folks and sis.

ffs Surrey, could your skies be any darker?

I'm abt to hop in one SUV and ride over to see my dad's family in Lancaster County which will be nice

wassup ya'll from south jerz
― nice catch cuauhtemoc blanco niño
(dayo), Sunday, December 25, 2011
1:58 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark
Permalink
― Stevie :-D , Sunday, December 25,
2011 10:18 AM (41 minutes ago)
Bookmark Permalink

Hey Pineys, want to grab a coffee tomorrow?

At home now, w/ Redd-in-laws in situ, but will check in legitimately from my sister's later.

dad's operation means no biscuits & sausage gravy. Brother is cooking breakfast burritos instead as my younger nephew is verifying the suggested age range on a box of Legos.

My son and I ate at our fave Pakistani kabob place in Virginia for Christmas Eve/5th night of Chanukah, and today we're going to my folks over in Maryland for a Jewish Christmas of a movie (Mission Impossible) and then Chinese Food.

Hey Pineys, want to grab a coffee tomorrow?

I do! But I'm back in the 215 tomorrow :-( anyone wanna come hang out wiff me in PHL?

lex: yes!

we're not eating xmas dinner until 8pm or so - i have done all the veg-chopping required of me and am hanging out in my old room poking idly at python, which seems to have become a christmas tradition (i guess it's replaced jigsaw puzzles as 'complicated and engrossing thing i normally don't have time to do'). so glad my family think of holidays as a time to read books in different rooms of the same house.

White republican NRA hunting-ass uncle making Ebonics jokes LOOOOL BLACK PEOPLE ARE SUCH ANIMALS LOOOOL

Stevie, if you ever need help disposing of a dead relative, you can call us 24/7. We'll even help you clean up afterwards. :-)

My family's stupidity has thankfully been relegated to not understanding why I'm a vegetarian and my dad asking me why I didn't love Jesus. @_@

60% of the household currently consisting of eight humans and two dogs are zonked out for Christmas naps.

Stevie, if you ever need help disposing of a dead relative, you can call us 24/7. We'll even help you clean up afterwards. :-)

Na he always gets me iTunes gift cards that I load up on new apps with.

north jersey, bored out of skull

my parents have said "you mean you DON'T own a TV?!?!" at least three times so far

have been given a crock pot : /

cmon, no shame in a crock pot.

i got all of my holiday visiting done over the last week or so during a series of road trips, and now i can do whatever i want today because i have already visited everyone and had every holiday conversation i need to have. today i will cook, eat, drink, read, and chill. at home.

oh i am not ashamed of a crock pot; it just seems like the sort of thing that i will never use, ultimately leading to disappointed expressions on maternal faces

Turning a crockpot to good use takes grit and determination. The nice thing is that you can have supper waiting for you at the end of the day. The bad part is that is just shifts the food prep to a different time, instead of making it any easier.

Try making soup. Soup is the miracle food of winter.

Crockpots are excellent for mulled wine and keeping a vat of hot chocolate at just the right temperature - ladle it out into a mug preloaded with rum/peppermint schnapps/Baileys/kahlua/etc. I also have made apple butter in mine, though it admittedly took days and days.

We opened presents last night at the assisted living place where MIL resides and am seeing the grandspawn into hyperdrive currently. Interspersed with long phone calls to everywhere. My ear hurts.

My gut tells me mookieproof isn't a big purveyor of mulled wine.

It's so hard to tell on the internets. Nacho cheese and bean dips too, but a crockpot-full is a lot of dip.

Na he always gets me iTunes gift cards that I load up on new apps with.

― Stevie :-D, Sunday, December 25, 2011 7:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lol my racisty uncle bought me grindr premium

where are you at judith, i can never work out where you're from

― Never translate German (schlump), Sunday, December 25, 2011 1:22 PM (4 hours ago)

recently im in london but home with the parents is ireland

Na he always gets me iTunes gift cards that I load up on new apps with.

― Stevie :-D, Sunday, December 25, 2011 7:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

lol my racisty uncle bought me grindr premium

He did not

oh wait you were making a funny! NEVERMIND

My gut tells me mookieproof isn't a big purveyor of mulled wine.

haha i actually like mulled wine, but i don't suppose i purvey it, no

friends >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> family

the 27th, when i return, seems so far away

yeah i might need to have my sister killed

We all stayed in separate rooms surfing the internet/watching TV.

Have not been to any relatives' "house" during the relatively (haha) minor Jewish holiday, but will go to the parents' for regular family dinner tonight. This will involve approximately 13-17 minutes of walking in each direction. I have some confidence that an Ansel Adams wall calendar will be waiting for me. There may also be jokes and/or grumbling about one or more Republicans, and discussion of theatre and other performing arts in New York and/or London. As it is not baseball season, no television will be watched. Any computer issues will be mine and resolved by my Dad.

Decided against a two-hour trip each way to spend time with my mother and her husband and my grandparents (they're not old and I'll see them later this week so I don't feel bad), stayed in all afternoon by myself reading and listening to music, then my brother got out of work early so he came over and got a bit drunk, now vegging out with the telly on and a bag of chocolate - this has been the best, most stress-free Xmas ever, definitely doing this every year from now on.

waiting out niece's latest tantrum/meltdown (imaginary friend won't let her snuggle with Dumbo)

imaginary friend needs to be shot imo

captain morgan + eggnog is making things rather more tolerable

Made an ocarina. Concerned about low level of booze consumption today. Half-attempting to watch Watchmen but I think I may give up.

mookieproof I will trade you a block of scrapple (my parents sent me six blocks of scrapple for Christmas) for your crockpot.

We stayed in Chicago. Jesse is here. Pork roast is out of the oven and Brussels sprouts and potatoes are in process. I always miss my family when we don't travel for the holidays, but I would be pretty bored and wishing fervently to be back in Chicago if I were there so.

I got bad indigestion from my aunt's casserole; I just crop-dusted the living room three times until my crazy uncle left, :D

my mom called me on the phone 2 say bad santa was on comedy central

we're watching a kirk cameron movie about how terrible it is to get divorced on CMT.

yaaaaaaaaaaaay!

my mom suggested that we watch roseanne instead...it actually convinced dad!

FUCK YEAH MOM

Ya I was wondrin' abt you dude. Is it just you 3 again?

yep, we are hanging out. luckily it's everyone's bedtime in about 30 minutes so we should be in good shape then.

i saw you got a $100 gift certificate to a bike shop. that's pretty awesome! what are you going to get?

That is a good question! I already got the pedals and foot straps I wanted secondhand from a friend, so I'm getting new handlebar tape and idk what else. Rear cargo rack maybe? STEVIE D ARE NOW FIELDING SUGGESTIONS

I stayed home alone for the first xmas in aaaages and Im really glad I did. LOL Melb actually had a white xmas day, cuz the city was hit with a MASSIVE FUCKOFF HAILSTORM that destroyed cars, flooded ppls houses, total crazyness.

Hardcore Pawn is on the tv, which is much more of a horribly classist show than I remember.

5-year-old nephew is practicing his reading Dick & Jane aloud and doing a good job.

bout to celebrate jewish christmas w/some friends: dim sum and a movie, baller

― Cooper Chucklebutt, Sunday, December 25, 2011 9:16 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

12 hours later, it was a magical christmas

feeling u

it was p epic, somehow snaked a table at sold out dim sum, mi5 ghost protocol, nachos and my 1st glance of the new nba season accidentally walked into weirdly packed green bay bar, unprovoked near bar fight, champagne, japanese home cooking, drinking at all venues of course, and now for real nba action, thank you santa

Home in MI, went to coooold beach yest w brother to drink beer and look at rolling green waves and tossing beach grass and dunes and trees in touch of setting sunlight. That sight is good for what ails ya.

Today was mega-dose of family, plumb tuckered out now. Wine, beer, ilx, freezing hands from smoking outside.

My dad totally ate my raw kale salad, biggest score of week tbh!!

:)

omg so glad to be home now

sooooo hammered and happy after hangin at BFF's place playin dominoes.q

3rd year in a row of Christmas just the two of us. Kind of like it but actually missing the family a little this year. We are surprisingly sensible at not overeating/eating the bewildering amount of chocolate in the apartment, when it's just us. Watched Dr Who & Pirates of Caribbean 4 and did a lot of cooking.

just went over to my dad's house for the first time in like five years. it is a fucking sty. there's an issue of the economist from 1997 sitting on the steps and it seems at least plausible that the bathtub has not been cleaned since then.

i'm not even a neat/clean freak, but i don't understand how these ppl that raised me live this way

i found my dad's "congratulations for winning the 1956 [town's name] chess tournament" certificate under a pile of my mom's shoes. does that make you feel better?

a) that's awesome -- go dad

b) i don't think you realize the full horror of these environments! i would take pictures but i didn't bring my camera plus i'd feel guilty sharing photos of my parents' squalor with the world

My parents live in a small but 3-bedroom (plus guest attic room) house with my younger brother. My mum mentioned some time ago that they were casually looking for a *bigger place* but couldn't find anywhere. All the rooms are filled up with junk and I am so so desperate to get in there and just chuck it all out. When I was back there last year I was trying to cook in the kitchen which has a lot of counter space yet it's ALL filled up with rubbish except this one tiny square. Example: A letter rack full of those return envelopes you get with bills. I laughed and started to chuck it out but my mum said dad wouldn't let me. Even if you want to keep such a thing, WHY on the kitchen counter?! It's not quite crazy hoarder level but I think they just don't see it. Even in the living room you can't sit down anywhere without moving a bunch of stuff first.

I think that qualifies as hoarding

my dad isn't much better though - I've found things around the house that I distinctly remember putting into the garbage can, only to be rescued at the very last moment by my dad

mookieproof, that is so unsettling.

Mookie, I do get it. I totally 100% get it. That was my "funny" example.

If anyone wants to talk about this offboard, webmail works. I can't rant about my parents on any public board even under 5 layers of pseudonyms. Anyway.

ruh roh, i have 200mb of internet left to see me through life at my mum's house until the 11th of january. i am boned. RIP images, hello mid-90s-looking internet.

drinking with yr family is kinda odd. i get along fine with them all and can even have a good time with them!!!, but it seems a waste of tipsiness, somehow.

I honestly think I have broken one of my molars from grinding my teeth this weekend. Calling the dentist tomorrow.

my family was split across two locations for xmas and i got a desperate report by text message from my closest ally in place a informing me they have suffered disharmony which was avoided entirely and thankfully and a bit surprisingly here at place b.

my mom seems committed to doing everything with time-saving modern technology, even though it never saves time. it's like watching the pentagon buy a $1500 screwdriver.

she is sending me a box in the mail. but her palm pilot, for some reason, refused to wirelessly print to her printer. so she plugged it into one laptop, which wouldn't recognize it, then succeeded with the second. at which point she managed to print out my name and address on a piece of paper, which she taped to the box.

simply writing the address by hand? inconceivable. after four days of this i am turning into the lex.

oh mookie, how much longer do you have to stay there.

13 hours, 25 minutes!

13 hours, 22 minutes!

glad estela avoided disharmony, sad about mookielex

Had a fight w/bf last night over what kind of pasta sauce we were to have for dinner. I threw an honest to god tantrum because he refused to let me cook the one I wanted, even tho he was also insisting he'd do the cooking and I could relax and sit down. WTF is wrong with me :( I am a grade-A moron.

dammit. post got eaten.

Looool mookie. Oh man.

Went to the Oak Ridge Museum of Science & Industry with Mom. Neat place, but you could tell it was last updated in the mid-90s. Renewables were seriously underrepresented tho they had a big ol exhibit about coal.

That may have more to do with the funders than how au courant it is.

Yeah. On our last (first and only) trip to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in 2006 or so there was a brand new exhibit about coal! Is awesome! Forever!

And there was a little exhibit about solar energy that was mostly broken so you'd try to light the bulb with solar energy and it would barely work or not work at all while AWESOME COAL ALWAYS was huge and shiny and function and you could ride in a bulldozer.

MOSAI is precisely what I had in mind.

i'm out! (well, i'm ion a train)

my mom had me install voice recognition software on her computer before i left. i thought it was going to be for learning a language, but no -- it's just to control the computer, because mouse/keyboard is apparently too inefficient. so *next* year when she's trying to print out my address, she'll have a telemarketer headphone set on and be yelling PRINT MOOKIE'S ADDRESS at her computer.

also i learned that the main reason she still has a landline is that she's afraid she wouldn't be able to find her cellphone at any given moment. given the state of her house, this is a very reasonable concern.

I am glad you are free!

i am envious. i am getting mad cabin fever. twenty minutes after arriving late on christmas eve, my sister (who i haven't seen in almost two years and who barely "hi" when i came in the door) turned up the volume on the television as i told my mam about my journey home. she was watching a michael bublé christmas special.

is this the macbook air sister or the other one?

the other one

the macbook air sister is generally a delight

smoked bowls and walked around

http://photos2.crosscountryadventures.us/albums/2010/July/6_canyonlands/IMG_6447.jpg

bought this book:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416SNAW7R6L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Wow. That's the Needles, I presume? Chesler Park?

Where is the thread for checking in from your own residence which has been commandeered by occupying holiday forces?

it got Occupied

james redd and the hungry holidaying blecchs.

They are all so happy, so full of holiday cheer. Trying to restrain myself after the umpteenth adjectival use of "pretty," prohibited by my sixth grade schoolteacher, is some serious I, Robot wrestling, interiorwise