I went home and there were dinner guests!
Monday, Dec. 01, 2003
@ 9:34 p.m.
Only one. Although I think she'll be the last.
Camie's aforementioned girlfriend Meighan (a very pretty girl with an unfortunate laugh) was accommodated at our table. It was planned two nights prior. Despite our best attempts to thwart her, mother managed to work curry into the main dish. Curry stinks.
The day was spent cleaning and (intrinsically) arguing. The most heated debate centered around which was more appropriate on our hardwood floors: vaccuuming or sweeping. It ended when I started sweeping the stairs, and shouted over the din that it would be impossible to know unless we tried them both. I'm all for equality.
Cam went to meet Meighan at the top of the hill because everyone's afraid of driving our road (sorry: not everyone), which wouldn't have been bad but it was a blizzard. It was because of lake effect whiteout conditions. Bloody meteorologist bullshit. The gist: miserable, blustery, and moreover blind first impression. And after all our cleaning.
Meighan didn't complain. She was polite at dinner and even took a second helping. She dared to try the pie for which I made the pastry. I've developed a knack for it, a knack of the sort Shawn French might find amusing. I'm sure you already do find it amusing, Paul. But I digress: my pie would have rocked but mom forgot to add flour necessary to the filling and we had to add it at the last minute after the merangue and for anyone who knows a nick about cooking, merangue should not be stirred. Flat pie ensued. And Meighan ate it. Lovely girl. Charming.
Things might have taken a better turn had my father, who is now completely senile for those of you keeping track, not turned the conversation to the people he referred to as "those crazy Arabs" while my brother sat stricken and I tryed desperately to choke out a laugh. Laughs make convenient pauses before major subject changes. My mother, however, stepped in with her usual "Ah well--but they're such a lovely people," adding, "THEY like curry. It's because of their climate, I think." and it was my turn to gape while my brother attempted a subject change. It flopped, and to make a long story short I had to tell Meighan, at the dinner table, that the reason Cam hates squirrels is because one peed on him a few years ago. Exit, dinner.
Meighan left eventually and Cam disappeared too...I think one of their friends came to pick them up. I'm not sure when because after excusing from the table and washing up, I went promptly to my bed. My bed without real pillows because when my father had a leg infection they used my pillows to elevate his leg and they are still in the process of sanitizing them. The 'replacement pillow' felt like a few pounds of gravel in a sack. It may well have been.
I'd gone home to relax. To hit the MAPS Christmas Craft Fair. To wrap presents and spend time with my absentee brother. It was my Christmas because, although I hadn't mentioned it sooner, I work Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day and will for the very first time be missing my family Christmas morning. So yes, as a substitute, this weekend sucked. But looking back over the whole stupid thing, I couldn't have expected much more. My crazy family is so dysfunctional it's magic. I guess it was still nice to be home.
Oh, and P.S--my trip home actually took more than five hours because of bad connections. I had an hour and a half in Toronto at Union yelling into my cell trying to get hold of my parents who I thought were probably already waiting for me at the Mall in Orangeville. Sorry: the 'm'all. It's that great.