We got the biggest piles of leaves mulched + bagged or composted. I got the bedspread and couch covers washed. We put away the chairs and umbrellas from the deck. Nick cleaned the gutters and hung the house xmas lights.

Then we came in and I made a deeelish dinner of chicky breasts stuffed with ham and whole grain dijon sauteéd then smothered in cream of chicky soup w/ dijon, then topped with a bit of parm and cheddar jack cheese and put under the broiler for a minute. YUM!

Nick finished trimming the tree while we watched various shows from the Magic Box.

Now I’m off to bed to await that bitch Aunt Flo to arrive overnight. I hope I get some sleep. :-/

Here’s the most recent pic of the Holmes comet from the Hubble.

It’s a fascinating phenomenon!

Every year around this time I ask the gods: WHY? WHY must I have such dolts for a family??

Of course the obvious answer is to teach me patience… Heh, I think that lesson has failed miserably.

Those people are so completely foreign to me that I just stare in wonder (horror?) at them whenever we go to visit. How can I be related to people who simply refuse to think? Absolutely, positively no thinking allowed. If the answer is not obvious and immediate, then it must be irrelevant.

My brother is the worst of the lot. He does not listen to one word that is said to him. He’d rather call me for how to spell something than look it the fuck up on the goddam internet that’s in front of his face. He’d rather call me about how to open an application (that he’s been shown how to do about 100 times) than THINK and figure it out. So, he wants to get Denna’s sister an iPod for xmas. Both Nick and I TOLD him that the new iPods are NOT the same as the Nanos. We told him that the new ones are more expensive than getting a Nano off of eBay. He said that he HAD to have a green Nano and yes, we should find one on eBay for him. (Gods forbid he’d actually USE the internet himself.) He insisted that yes, Wally World does have the Nanos for $150. We said well, go get it then, it’s about the same price on eBay. So I get a call this afternoon from my sadly intelligence challenged brother helpfully informing me that Wally World only had the new iPods… Um, yah, just like we told him LAST NIGHT. ARGH!! He didn’t check Wally World, he just assumed that all models are available all the time – because checking would require a) thought and b) effort. No, why bother to CHECK when he can run us the fuck ragged doing his fucking shopping FOR him then turn around and buy the new expensive one anyway because it’s easier?

And then there’s my mother who revealed that she prefers to turn off the iMac by yanking the cord… Which sent me into a fit of uncontrollable eye twitches.

I swear to gods you’ll end up talking to yourself if you have to interact with these people for more than a day or two…

OMFG. How can I be related to them?? How??

And they wonder why I ran away screaming? ::insert crazed laughter here::

They make my head hurt. Stupidity should not hurt me, dammit! It should hurt THEM!!

This could be the reason that we drink the whole time we’re up there… it’s that or let Teh Dumb worm its way into our brains. I feel that keeping a nice buffer of alcohol shields you from Teh Dumb. It’s worked so far…