A good friend of mine has recently lost the right to drop off his dog everyday at his mother's house before going to work. I find this funny, because I've known him for over 10 years and I saw this day coming for quite sometime. His mother, who I think is very real and cool, is also a true German lady who loves to keep busy tidying, cleaning, etc. She attempted to raise my friend as my father raised me, a perfectionist of sorts. I vividly remember being given a lesson in the proper method of sweeping the sidewalk. Say the sidewalk horizantally runs West to East - the only correct way to clean/sweep this sidewalk is the one swift motion from West to East with particular attention paid to the crack between concrete slabs with a special broom with more narrow and toughened bristels. I would try so hard to get it just right so that my dad would be proud. On the rare times he was I was elated - yey! I rule, I am the best sweeper, raker, cleaner ever and my sister sucks. I am the WINNER! This kind of pride from irrational ocd method of cleaning never hit home for my friend. He saw his mother's nagging then as today as a nuisance. Unecessary and an intentional behavior from his mother to make his day awful. He does not take pride in tidying up his Mom's home, not when he was younger and not now. The picture was sent to me this morning from my friend, not like - hey look how cute my nephew is or wow, my brother is making him gay dressing him like that. Nothing but the curt sentence of "check out all the leaves in the backyard." I love that.

Why is it that holidays are always soo complicated? I mean, what is the big deal? It's an occasion for people to get together and eat and drink (hopefully) and maybe lay around and watch football. Basically it should be super lax, no stress. Well they rarely are that way. In fact every holiday I am reminded once again about how much better my life would have been if I were a man. Men get away with so much more shrugging of the shoulders, bodily noises, general laid-backness all of it and more accepted of most men. (Unless, you marry or are with a woman who hen-pecks you in which case you deserve it - idiot. Now wash the damn dishes).
My Dad gets a free ride every holiday for as long as I remember. He never has to go to Church, he doesn't have to even show up in fact he rarely does. And, do we love him less? No, in fact he stays out of a lot of unnecessary bickering, frequent crying, breakdowns, etc. Men have it made.
Huge debacle this year - not unlike many years of yore in my family. Mom, who has serious memory lags and, like a typical woman, is never wrong, changed everything around. So, today instead of us all being together she took an early flight home, my sister and her family ate day before fixings from the local grocery and I had a huge sweet potato at the house where I am dog sitting. On top of it all - I drove an hour plus eachway to spend some time with humans to watch Happy Feet (those fucking penguins on the tv trailer rapping make me want to start eating penguin) but no - in fact today I enjoyed it. I spent the ride home having an imaginery conversation about how it was great that kids' movies have morals and wondering how my nephews were affected by the film. Would they, as I did as a child, start to secretly become a vegetarian and ride everyone's asses to recycle and start call the local humane society when a neighbor's pony has "unkempt hooves." Too much I tell you. What is the solution? Well, alchohol of course and being weird. I've found I get away with a lot because I'm deemed as weird by normal suburban folk. I mean, I have to deal with the "hey, where's Kathy?" (down in basement making pipebombs - nooo, watching a movie. Dinner time I come upstairs to be greeted with) "Oh, look who showed up! Fancy that, Miss Sociable" (Can't imagine why I wouldn't want to be upstairs with the chickens). But, by then I've got a good buzz going. Not an ideal scenario though I've got to tell you - no one wants to be razzed. So, this year I am getting inside my Dad's head to figure out the secret to his avoidance of holiday drama. But, in reality I will probably end up in the basement watching my very own copy of the then newly released DVD of Happy Feet.