hehe hi faye

 

but it was ok, cause then we found a jeep with two girls that we bothered for about half an hour. They were nice, and slightly more responsive, but still no rock paper scissors. and compared to the 2 hour Sara odyssey, it just wasn't the same. plus they didn't try very hard to escape us. On the bright side, we made ridiculously good time (Sacramento to Tejon in like 4 hours and 45 minutes or something stupid like that) and didn't even get a speeding ticket.








Anddddd this is from I think early December. Like, right before Christmas.

Anyway, I really need to get down to san Diego and see you,  Fayela. We are going to Eugene next Friday, which is AWESOME and I am really excited. Mainly cause I will not have to drive a car for like 9 days or something ridiculous like that. Okay, the updates! They COMMENCE.

1. Family: Craziness and sadness. I will go chronologically...I went home for Thanksgiving/Mom's birthday, which was going to be a surprise but I am really amazingly bad at keeping secrets (day after I bought the ticket, talking to Mom on the phone with Jacques in the car, started talking about Thanksgiving ticket prices. Jacques just sat there mouthing "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" in disbelief at my level of fail. it was nice) So it was KIND of a surprise, cause Mom was looking at ticket prices and getting sad, and was kind of sad in general, so I told her and she was all sorts of WHAT?! and happier so that much was successful. So we had an okay Thanksgiving if you don't count dinner. It was just my dad's sister and brother for guests and they are amazingly awful...dinner conversation was started by them at nursing homes, then deaths of their parents, then death in general, then particularly gruesome murders of the past 20 years. When I lost the battle with my appetite and stopped eating due to the DISGUSTING SUBJECS UNDER DISCUSSION, my aunt actually looked at me in surprise and asked if I had lost my appetite. I then proceeded to build pyramids with the sad remains of my dinner and earthquake them down. When she noted that if I had kids, I would tell them to not play with their food, I almost said I'd also teach them what was and was not acceptable dinner conversation with company. Instead I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, which ended up being "That's why I don't have kids!" Later, Katie had the sense to tell me that this was actually a worse burn, since that aunt is the one with the crazy daughter who has like 3-4 kids (I've only met one, she's a demon, my nieces and nephews always seem to be unbearable human beings) and like no sense at all. It was nice. So after dinner we went in the next room, laughed at them for an hour, and then Katie and I proceeded to get RIDICULOUSLY drunk in front of them. The great part is, if they don't approve of something or want to deal with it, they ignore it utterly. Case in point: "Oops! Who shook the tonic water?" ::::tiny, painful silence from their table, I proceed to make the ONLY thing anyone ever makes with tonic water, i.e. DRUNKENESS:::: Second case in point: I decide to forcibly change the topic from their current discussion, tragic current events involving murders and/or suicides. "Who wants some pie?" ::::tiny, painful silence from their table::: MY FATHER: "You know something else really sad that was just in the paper..." (goes on to describe the suicide of a teenage girl). It was a lot funnier drunk. And drunk-dialing our respective boyfriends on Thanksgiving night was good too.
So if you don't count dinner, it was a nice trip home. I hung out a lot with Mom, who was seeming a little saner, and at least drinking less, although this smoking bullshit has got to stop. But we visited my grandpa, which was one of the main reasons I paid way too much for the plane ticket, more on that later, and went to lunch and things like that. And Katie is hilarious and awesome as usual. Capstone of the trip was, admittedly, Dad showing up at the airport to see me off and telling me...
Dad: "Say hi to Josh for me."
Me: "....uh...His name is Jacques..."
Dad: "Jock?"
Me: "Jacques."
Dad: "...That's what I said."
I think he actually may be losing it. But I can't help finding that embarrassingly funny.

So back to Los Angeles, and the Friday after, I call Mom and her best friend, as it turns out, has stolen all of Mom's commission checks from Mom's desk drawer (why she had them all in her drawer is another issue, she wants to remodel Grandpa's old house, which should be condemned and would be worth more if she knocked it down and sold the land) because April apparently had a pretty solid crack habit. And wrote/forged checks from Mom's bank account. The ensuing drama and nuttiness has been rather bad. And then Grandpa was doing worse that weekend and progressively so last week. He passed away Monday morning. I'm really, really glad I got home when I did. He was pretty loopy, but he was still mostly there and it was nice. Not so much last weekend, which is why I didn't go back again. It was pretty much a decision on his part to stop eating, so I'm glad he got to decide that he had had enough and how he wanted to go; he was in a lot of pain, and at least got to keep a little of his dignity. So it's sad, but it's good too.

The rest is fairly boring...need a haircut, trying to get Christmas gifts together (I need addresses for both of you!), trying to find a way to avoid this hellish commute, trying to figure out why my stupid face is so broken out, playing games with the Birdling (who seems much better after her crop infection drama, which was a fun time. she threw up in my hair and we went to the emergency vet, where she got to spend the night in an incubator cage, sang to the vet, and ended up on 2 weeks of antibiotics, which are a ton of fun to administer to a struggling bitey beaky bird. SUCH a beaky bird), Donut is coming to visit next week, which is VERY exciting cause I really miss him, plus he's going to help birdsit while we are in Oregon so I need to get him something awesome as a Christmas/thankyou gift, getting set up in the new apartment (with hitches...we ordered a 2 piece couch from Ikea six weeks ago and now have half of it...), trying to track down the mysterious STENCH in the kitchen (it's MADDENING! I took out all the garbage, cleaned out the fridge, did all the dishes, and ran the garbage disposal, and STILL it smells WEIRD and vaguely fishy. when I get bored at night I hunt for the STENCH), and slowly watching a whole lot of Star Trek with Jacques. Computers are being little bitches at work, but other than that it is going okay, I just wish I did not have to drive so far cause my car is all weird and making weird smells and lights and behaviors.
Oh and we finally got a mattress! Which is a weird thing to be excited about, but we were on an air mattress for like 3 months and plus it is the nicest thing to sleep on possibly in the world, it is almost TOO comfortable cause sometimes it is difficult to even vaguely want to get up in the morning. I found a sushi place that has all sorts of corrective actions required on the grade sign but I really do not care as the salmon sashimi bowl is like the most perfect food I've ever devoured. Realizing that I really like to work, but I really hate having a job. Not sure how to resolve that one satisfactorily. Knitting crap (about to start a large round of Jayne hats for the Brunner clan in various happy colors, let me know if your head is cold). Looking at way too many lolcats. Still trying to find crap from the move. Drinking a whole lot of blueberry tea. Arguing with bad-mannered computers at work. Being very itchy due to the total lack of moisture in the air. Considering going home and pouring a bottle of olive oil over my head, yelling loudly, and dancing around in a battle-torn toga to remedy this problem (for some reason, that really sounds like it would work, too. like I'd feel a lot better afterwards. but it would entail battle to properly tear the toga).