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I got up to Kenosha in the mid-evening on Christmas Eve. My family got organized (not the fastest process for us) and went out for our traditional Christmas Eve meal at the Chinese buffet. Regrettably, Lara's parents and family couldn't make it. I always like seeing them because her dad, years and years after my performance as Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, still greets with "Hi Chief!" every time he sees me. It makes me smile.
I stayed up late with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
akreaveter, as usual, and finally got to bed sometime on the same day that my parents woke us up for the annual Christmas breakfast.
My dad loves making this huge meal on Christmas morning. He says that, every year, his Christmas present is having all of us together in one place, and he celebrates that by having a meal together. There was so much good food. After that, I was surprised with a couple of Christmas presents. I really wasn't expecting anything as I hadn't done any shopping myself. My family is not picky about this sort of thing. (Really, we're not picky about much of anything.) But regardless, my parents bought me a copy of Arkham Horror, a huge epic board game that I'd played two partial games of and really wanted a copy of, but had decided was more money than I wanted to spend. It is a thoughtful and generous present.
As well as that, there was a book that my mother came across working at the library that she said made her think of one of my bumper stickers ("Something wonderful is about to happen"). So they gave me a copy of Something Wonderful Happens, a children's book that's terribly sweet and oddly a little zen, and probably isn't to everyone's taste. It made me cry.
My brother, No-LJ-James, bought a copy of Dominion, a very cool non-collectible card game. Oddly enough,danaeris had taught me how to play just a few weeks ago when I was visiting. My brother had never seen it before, but thought it looked interesting and wanted something to play with Ak and I. Win-win! We played through a couple games before the whole family left for my grandparents' house.
It was great to see the whole extended family again. I was sad to find out that my grandfather had had to be admitted to the hospital the night before and wasn't there; he came down with pneumonia. Clearly a visit would be in order later on. But for the present, I saw my grandmother, both uncles and my aunt and their kids, and evenmoiracoon, who was there for dinner. It was nice. I talked to my aunt more than I've done for a long time. I used to be really shy and quiet when around my extended family. I was scared of, or didn't know how to, interact with them. Along with the major improvements in the rest of my social habits, I'm doing better with them too and I really enjoyed talking to everybody there. I took some pictures, too, of people together at dinner, kids opening presents, that sort of thing. Happy family time. It's good.
Later in the evening, my immediate family drove out to the hospital to visit Grandpa. The five of us spent a while talking to him, and I was glad to see he seemed a lot better than I was told he had been when he was brought in. After a while, the rest of my family left to get home ahead of the snow and James and I stayed to talk a while longer. Grandpa says some things that make me worry a little; talking about how old he feels these days. At the same time, he's not too old to tell stories about going out to the zoo with all his highschool friends back in California and teaching all the monkeys to make wanking motions at the other visitors! He's got some fantastic stories.
At one point, he made a comment about knowing lots of weird people. I said that I knew some pretty weird people too. I talked about some of the interesting things my friends have done and the way they live, and eventually came back to me. Following up on his comment about how he 'didn't understand my family sometimes', I came out as poly and talked about how my partner has other partners who I know and am friends with, and that that must be pretty weird. "It's not weird if it's not bad." he responded.
"Well, I think it's pretty good."
"Good."
My family is wonderful. Just wonderful. I'm planning to go out and visit him again soonish. Probably in a couple weeks once I"m not working anymore.
Another thing that made me think a bit while I was there was how older people have so much social leeway in their interactions with other people. Grandpa made an innuendous comment about the nurse who had just left the room, and who I think could probably overhear, that made me feel a bit embarrassed. I have a feeling that that sort of thing is put up with much more readily from older folks for a number of reasons. It would make for some interesting investigation into that kind of social interaction. For my part, I love my grandpa and I'm glad at least that he's feeling up to making that kind of comment! Though if I'd known which nurse it was, I might have found her and apologized. I don't like feeling so male-privileged.
I wish there was a way I could travel to New Orleans with him. He loved seeing my pictures from there, and talked about how much he's always wanted to visit, but he's not up to a long car ride these days. For that matter, I wish I could even take him up to the Keweenau peninsula again, look at the copper mining ruins, the ironwork that a friend of his did on the city hall in Iron Mountain, all the stuff he's talked about up there.
---
Anyway, we left around ten thirty or so I think, James and I driving an hour and a half back to Kenosha through an amazing blizzard. There was little snow most of the way home, but the lake-effect hit Kenosha something fierce. There were snow drifts in the road that were over the hood of my car; I'd drive into them and snow would fly up over my windshield as I plowed through. At least it was the light fluffy stuff. I'm surprised my car got through even that! Any worse, and I would have been stuck in my little Swift.
I don't quite remember what happened the rest of that weekend. Probably more lazing about and playing games with folks. And then it was back to Chicago on Sunday night (way too late) for work. I had to go in to the office on Monday, and then I was off the rest of the week and right on through the new year.
I stayed up late with
akreaveter, as usual, and finally got to bed sometime on the same day that my parents woke us up for the annual Christmas breakfast. My dad loves making this huge meal on Christmas morning. He says that, every year, his Christmas present is having all of us together in one place, and he celebrates that by having a meal together. There was so much good food. After that, I was surprised with a couple of Christmas presents. I really wasn't expecting anything as I hadn't done any shopping myself. My family is not picky about this sort of thing. (Really, we're not picky about much of anything.) But regardless, my parents bought me a copy of Arkham Horror, a huge epic board game that I'd played two partial games of and really wanted a copy of, but had decided was more money than I wanted to spend. It is a thoughtful and generous present.
As well as that, there was a book that my mother came across working at the library that she said made her think of one of my bumper stickers ("Something wonderful is about to happen"). So they gave me a copy of Something Wonderful Happens, a children's book that's terribly sweet and oddly a little zen, and probably isn't to everyone's taste. It made me cry.
My brother, No-LJ-James, bought a copy of Dominion, a very cool non-collectible card game. Oddly enough,
danaeris had taught me how to play just a few weeks ago when I was visiting. My brother had never seen it before, but thought it looked interesting and wanted something to play with Ak and I. Win-win! We played through a couple games before the whole family left for my grandparents' house.It was great to see the whole extended family again. I was sad to find out that my grandfather had had to be admitted to the hospital the night before and wasn't there; he came down with pneumonia. Clearly a visit would be in order later on. But for the present, I saw my grandmother, both uncles and my aunt and their kids, and even
moiracoon, who was there for dinner. It was nice. I talked to my aunt more than I've done for a long time. I used to be really shy and quiet when around my extended family. I was scared of, or didn't know how to, interact with them. Along with the major improvements in the rest of my social habits, I'm doing better with them too and I really enjoyed talking to everybody there. I took some pictures, too, of people together at dinner, kids opening presents, that sort of thing. Happy family time. It's good.Later in the evening, my immediate family drove out to the hospital to visit Grandpa. The five of us spent a while talking to him, and I was glad to see he seemed a lot better than I was told he had been when he was brought in. After a while, the rest of my family left to get home ahead of the snow and James and I stayed to talk a while longer. Grandpa says some things that make me worry a little; talking about how old he feels these days. At the same time, he's not too old to tell stories about going out to the zoo with all his highschool friends back in California and teaching all the monkeys to make wanking motions at the other visitors! He's got some fantastic stories.
At one point, he made a comment about knowing lots of weird people. I said that I knew some pretty weird people too. I talked about some of the interesting things my friends have done and the way they live, and eventually came back to me. Following up on his comment about how he 'didn't understand my family sometimes', I came out as poly and talked about how my partner has other partners who I know and am friends with, and that that must be pretty weird. "It's not weird if it's not bad." he responded.
"Well, I think it's pretty good."
"Good."
My family is wonderful. Just wonderful. I'm planning to go out and visit him again soonish. Probably in a couple weeks once I"m not working anymore.
Another thing that made me think a bit while I was there was how older people have so much social leeway in their interactions with other people. Grandpa made an innuendous comment about the nurse who had just left the room, and who I think could probably overhear, that made me feel a bit embarrassed. I have a feeling that that sort of thing is put up with much more readily from older folks for a number of reasons. It would make for some interesting investigation into that kind of social interaction. For my part, I love my grandpa and I'm glad at least that he's feeling up to making that kind of comment! Though if I'd known which nurse it was, I might have found her and apologized. I don't like feeling so male-privileged.
I wish there was a way I could travel to New Orleans with him. He loved seeing my pictures from there, and talked about how much he's always wanted to visit, but he's not up to a long car ride these days. For that matter, I wish I could even take him up to the Keweenau peninsula again, look at the copper mining ruins, the ironwork that a friend of his did on the city hall in Iron Mountain, all the stuff he's talked about up there.
---
Anyway, we left around ten thirty or so I think, James and I driving an hour and a half back to Kenosha through an amazing blizzard. There was little snow most of the way home, but the lake-effect hit Kenosha something fierce. There were snow drifts in the road that were over the hood of my car; I'd drive into them and snow would fly up over my windshield as I plowed through. At least it was the light fluffy stuff. I'm surprised my car got through even that! Any worse, and I would have been stuck in my little Swift.
I don't quite remember what happened the rest of that weekend. Probably more lazing about and playing games with folks. And then it was back to Chicago on Sunday night (way too late) for work. I had to go in to the office on Monday, and then I was off the rest of the week and right on through the new year.