Hello Jesus!

I went home to NY for the annual Christmas party.  My flight back got canceled out of Westchester Airport and the only flight they could find was this morning at 5:30am out of Hartford.  Only they didn’t specify which airport and Delta.com and the Delta 800 line could not answer questions due to weather conditions.  This is ever so helpful when it is 3:30 am and you are at a dark, scary abandoned airfield.  My father couldn’t believe I didn’t take a picture—clearly I was distracted.  I tried to find it on google but apparently this was one of those scary places they didn’t bring the camera. 

Julie couldn’t find me a chainsaw with a Hello Kitty on it, but she did find me a Hello Kitty ornament which I promptly put into the nativity near the baby Jesus.  When I asked Kevin (my 7 year old nephew) to check out the Nativity to see if he saw anything different he said, “Hello Kitty?! What the…!?”

Here are some highlights (at least that I can remember) from the party:

(My friend who has been coming to parties at my house since we were 5): I have a feeling that I know everyone else, but no one knows me.

We like to make fun of the fact that my mother has favorites… so towards the end of the party you could hear this conversation:

Momela: I like all of my grandchildren!

Maureen: But you LOVE Bailey, Sean and Kyle.

Frita: Poor Sean.  He spilled his drink and broke my glasses trying to hug me. Ten minutes later, as I was trying to get a picture of my father and sister, Maureen spilled her beer on my dad.  (I totally got some awesome pictures of this whole sequence of events but I don’t have my camera on me. L)

Briana (with a coat on after I hugged her): I’m not leaving.  I’m just cold.

Stacey (about Sean): This is a tradition dad.  He always makes sandwiches before we leave the party.  It’s when he shoves cookies in his pockets that it’s a problem.

Me to Julie at 2:30 am: Don’t you wish one of these year we would pass out before clean up time?

Kenny (because we just got pictures from the last 10 years of parties the past summer): These pictures are going to look great in 10 years!  Now, move over I can’t see enough of the new fridge.  

Kenny: At what point are you going to lose the tank top and show some cleavage. Remember that one year?

Me: Which one?

Kenny: You were showing both of them.

Me: Not my cleavage. Which year!?

Larry: This is like asking Kenny which time he was drunk.

Beth: Can you add your laugh into these emails?

Me: I don’t think anyone wants to hear that.

John: We can always choose to delete it.

While some people seemed to enjoy my new “Cabrookies for the Undecided” they were universally deemed “The New Coke” of desserts.  Or maybe just Larry and Mike said that?  If that’s the case… I’m forging ahead. 

Highlights from the rest of the weekend:

Frita: This morning I was explaining to Kevin why he gets hit sometimes.

Maureen: I feel like I just dealt.

Me: Sometimes feelings are wrong.

Frita: You shouldn’t make fun of your friends.

Maureen: I learned it from my dad.

Momela to her son-in-law: It’s not nice to hide your wife’s nebulizer.

Mo: Where did you get that (cracker jack toy.)

Momela: North Carolina.

Frita: Other people stop in North Carolina for Cigarettes, your mom bee lined for the cracker jacks.

After Pat got through asking for part for his Mustang and Maureen saying he wasn’t getting any more part b/c he didn’t use any of the ones he got last year, and Robin sorrowfully complaining that her husband sold her Mustang to some chick in Virginia so he could get another truck my father said, “Rednecks DO love their Mustangs.”  

I went to pick up Evivova and her boyfriend Joe at the train station and brought them back to Sean’s to finish making Chocolate Lollipops. (To say that my niece is a stickler for the rules is an understatement.  Every time I messed up I was worried she was going to yell at me.)  When we walked in Morgan and Jackie were wrestling on the floor.  I ignored the fighting, introduced my nieces, and stepped over them.  (Later I found out that Sean told them to wrestle so as to rattle the guests.  In retrospect, maybe it worked.  They did look a little freaked out. 

Me (Minutes after meeting Joe): How was Thanksgiving? Did anyone ruin it?

Joe looked startled and Eva said, “No! It was great.” 

Turns out Joe actually thought that he had ruined Thanksgiving and it took Eva a couple of hours to convince him that it was just a coincidence that I mentioned the topic and not that she had complained to me.  Whoops.

 

After the lollipop making I went with Sean and the girls to get some Portuguese cuisine.  We had to stop to get a light and change for the meter and on our way back to the car Morgan (7) picked up a push pin off the ground and said to me, “If a cop tries to give us a ticket I’m going to stab him with this.”   

Apparently, a couple months ago when Maureen had to get their septic pumped, the three boys thought that the whole process was AWESOME and kept asking the guys working if they had to go to school for this or if they could just start working right away.  The Septic guy just said, “Trust me.  Stay in school.”

I told Becky at lunch last week that I had to go to get new jeans b/c the ones I was wearing kept falling down and my other pair had pee on it.  Of course she posted the quote on FB and I ended up trying to heal some of reputation by piping in that “It wasn’t my Urine!” which maybe was not making me look any better. 

I was so tired last Monday (though now that I have been up since 2 am EST, I think I might need to re-define the term “Tired”) that I was falling asleep on the couch. I looked over at Nate and said, “What time is it?” and Nate immediately answered, “It is still 20 minutes before it is acceptable for you to go to sleep.”

I also met “Dumb Charlie” when I went over to Laina’s last Tuesday. He was caught by her mother when she was 3 months old (on a forced fishing trip as her father finished their house), collected dust for 30 years, and then she asked if she could put it on her wall.  Of course!  Who wouldn’t want dumb Charlie!

My cousin Billy is what one might call a “Bad Ass.”  He has been training to be able drop out of planes by himself, he drives boats fast and motorcycles faster, and he gets dropped off by helicopters on the top of ridiculous mountains to see if he can make his way down the rough natural slopes on his own.  So naturally he ended up breaking his leg in three places, running into our other cousin, while on the bunny slopes.  He told me the full story in between sucking oxygen up in Breckenridge CO after he sent me this lovely photo:

And then finally, b/c I am so sleepy, I found this letter from Kevin to Patrick adorable:

Have a good week!