Holiday post-mortem
Our version of the holidays is over. I'm exhausted.
We put about 400 miles on the cars in the last few days between parties and family gatherings and other assorted holiday michegas. Gas is expensive. I shudder to think what things would have been like if we had larger families, or ones further away. I wouldn't want to have any particular leg of our travels in the last couple days be more than a couple hours; I can't imagine how people who have to travel five and six hours maintain their sanity, especially if there are small children in the car. Between the inevitable whining (the kids can't help it) and whatever children's entertainment (music or videos, if your vehicle is so equipped) you've brought to try and keep the kid entertained, I'd be wanting to drive into a tree.
Except if it was my little second cousin Cyrus. The kid is nearly disgustingly well behaved. He's two years old this year, and I would normally expect him to be a complete little terror during our family gathering, what with all the people around to get attention from. Nothing of the kind. He was rambunctious to be sure, and had all kinds of fun tossing discarded wrapping paper around (and honestly, who doesn't), but only pitched anything even remotely resembling a fit once. I think I was more cranky than he was during our unbelieveably poorly planned and hilariously poorly executed Yankee swap. (If you don't know what a Yankee swap is as it relates to gift-giving, read this.) But that was only because we were running late to be at my brother-in-law's to see Jenn's family, and that was because the fascist hospital that my mom works for forced her to be on call until 2:30 in the afternoon. (My mom usually works in an outpatient surgical unit, separate from the main OR at that hospital. But, because the management of the hospital are a bunch of cheap no-account short-sighted assholes, nurses on that unit have to be on call to the main OR, where they never work, on nights and weekends. Nevermind that having nurses who don't work in that recovery room cover in there drops a daisy cutter on anything resembling quality of care, no matter how good the nurses are. I'll rant about this in a future posting.) So the whole afternoon was a wait-and-hurry-up affair. It all turned out ok (or at least people said they weren't offended or anything, so I'm going to take them at their word.)
I hope I don't gain much weight over the next week or so; we got a lot of chocolate as gifts. That, and my knee is giving me some trouble, making it impossible for me to get on the exercise bike like I should. I'm trying to stay under 150lbs. (Yeah yeah. I'm 5'6".) Advil is my friend. That and a judicious amount of "alcohol therapy."
(PS how much does it suck that Tony Dungy's kid died a couple days ago? For those of you who aren't sports fans, Tony is the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts football team. The Colts were having an epic season, threatening to go undefeated for the regular season, a feat not accomplished since the Miami Dolphins in 1972. Tony is well respected both in the media and among his peers, and his players would follow him to hell and back, twice. On top of the world one minute, facing an incomprehensible loss the next. It doesn't get a lot worse than that, in my estimation.)
We put about 400 miles on the cars in the last few days between parties and family gatherings and other assorted holiday michegas. Gas is expensive. I shudder to think what things would have been like if we had larger families, or ones further away. I wouldn't want to have any particular leg of our travels in the last couple days be more than a couple hours; I can't imagine how people who have to travel five and six hours maintain their sanity, especially if there are small children in the car. Between the inevitable whining (the kids can't help it) and whatever children's entertainment (music or videos, if your vehicle is so equipped) you've brought to try and keep the kid entertained, I'd be wanting to drive into a tree.
Except if it was my little second cousin Cyrus. The kid is nearly disgustingly well behaved. He's two years old this year, and I would normally expect him to be a complete little terror during our family gathering, what with all the people around to get attention from. Nothing of the kind. He was rambunctious to be sure, and had all kinds of fun tossing discarded wrapping paper around (and honestly, who doesn't), but only pitched anything even remotely resembling a fit once. I think I was more cranky than he was during our unbelieveably poorly planned and hilariously poorly executed Yankee swap. (If you don't know what a Yankee swap is as it relates to gift-giving, read this.) But that was only because we were running late to be at my brother-in-law's to see Jenn's family, and that was because the fascist hospital that my mom works for forced her to be on call until 2:30 in the afternoon. (My mom usually works in an outpatient surgical unit, separate from the main OR at that hospital. But, because the management of the hospital are a bunch of cheap no-account short-sighted assholes, nurses on that unit have to be on call to the main OR, where they never work, on nights and weekends. Nevermind that having nurses who don't work in that recovery room cover in there drops a daisy cutter on anything resembling quality of care, no matter how good the nurses are. I'll rant about this in a future posting.) So the whole afternoon was a wait-and-hurry-up affair. It all turned out ok (or at least people said they weren't offended or anything, so I'm going to take them at their word.)
I hope I don't gain much weight over the next week or so; we got a lot of chocolate as gifts. That, and my knee is giving me some trouble, making it impossible for me to get on the exercise bike like I should. I'm trying to stay under 150lbs. (Yeah yeah. I'm 5'6".) Advil is my friend. That and a judicious amount of "alcohol therapy."
(PS how much does it suck that Tony Dungy's kid died a couple days ago? For those of you who aren't sports fans, Tony is the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts football team. The Colts were having an epic season, threatening to go undefeated for the regular season, a feat not accomplished since the Miami Dolphins in 1972. Tony is well respected both in the media and among his peers, and his players would follow him to hell and back, twice. On top of the world one minute, facing an incomprehensible loss the next. It doesn't get a lot worse than that, in my estimation.)
posted by Zach Burnham at 7:59 PM (click for permalink)
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