On his mom’s side, his grandparents are both full of health complaints, and likely won’t be doing much travel in the future. I’m glad they got to see our house once, and that they made it to Alabama last summer to finally meet mom. James’ aunt Iris has moved back in with them in her transition back to town, and while she looks for work, but it seems she might not look for her own place afterall, since they seem to be benefiting from having someone living with them to help out.

This was also Jen’s first Christmas solo, and I guess the separation is underway, with a year required before they can divorce. She expressed how nervous she was to be visiting the family after all her drama, and was afraid we’d all be mad at her just because we all like Marc. None of us have to live with him, though, and we all support her on her road to happiness however she may have to get there.

I didn’t spend much time with James’ dad’s side of the family this visit, other than some time Christmas morning, and even then his Aunt Mary was too sick to join us. I think Noah was suitably spoiled by Santa, though he was grown-up enough to wait for us to arrive before opening presents Christmas morning and not complain. James’ Dad and Noah will be coming down to Alabama to help set up the New Years eve fireworks show, or rather his Dad will help. Noah will likely get stuck playing games with GNI, pending they managed to extend her visit.

If we didn’t need to check on Kitty, and if I didn’t have work issues, including needing to pick up my paycheck, we probably would have just headed on to Alabama to see my family and start on the fireworks prep, but instead we came back to Atlanta for a couple days. It is always nice to get to sleep in our own bed again after a trip to Chattanooga with the “Worst Waterbed on Earth^TM“. So, today including some random work nonsense, we’ve been doing laundry and packing for a cold New Years eve working outside.

Not really sure what the post-New Years fireworks plan is. I guess there might be some drinking and carousing at the house afterward, if we’re not all just exhausted from the clean-up. Next day we will have to walk the site by daylight and make sure it’s all taken care of. Neither James or I have to work Friday, so I guess we’ll figure out our schedule as we can. We likely won’t head back until at least Saturday, or if they have worked out to extend Ivy’s ticket, we’ll likely be heading back to coincide dropping her off at the Birmingham airport, probably Sunday. The frewtnut niece and her hubby should be on their way home today, though.

Anywho… long gone are the days of just enjoying the holidays, as we continue to endeavor to put on these firework shows. The cabin getaway with Kit & Bob the following weekend should be just the nice, no-brainer break that could use after all this travel and work. For those of you lucky enough to just “enjoy” New Year’s eve at some party, perhaps with a tasty beverage, and with or without fireworks, know I envy you and also wish you well. Drive safe and we’ll see you next year!

This weekend will be the first visit east by the Alabama sis & hubby in quite a while! They’re picking up the Cali niece, hubby & GNI (great neice Ivy) on the way over, and should be here late tonight. She gets to be GNI, at least in writing, because she calls me GAK when she can’t be bothered to say the whole phrase “great aunt Kim” every time. God forbid she just call me Kim.

Anywho… time… has… crawled… today. When we had originally planned on getting the fridge and some furniture from the office this week, I’d figured we’d be buried in a wreck of a house just in time for our visitors. As it is, we’ve actually got it together. There’s beer in the fridge and vodka in the freezer. Still need to run our water line to get the ice maker going, but the essense of the party-fridge is now in place.

James’ office, even, with his new desk, is already all set up. We even managed to keep the countertop and filing cabinets he was using for a desk, just move them down, so we can dub them “Pete’s desk”, as some payback for the Alabama folks who dub the countertop in Pete’s office as “James’ desk”. If only they’d get over this way to use it more often, maybe it would be more true.

Most of you already know I took the Facebook plunge over Thanksgiving, primarily because the frewtnut niece is there. I’m discovering a wide range of folks use it, though, and have found more classmates than on any other free network. Now I’ve got the urge to dig out some yearbooks and look people up. It was sort of strange just listing everyone from the same year at the same high school and asking them to be friends, but that seems to be the norm there. I’m looking forward to sending out some personal messages though — after I look people up!

LJ will likely continue to be my venting/journaling site, but I have to say I’m checking Facebook much more often than LJ now. Perhaps it will help keep mom from passing on her terrible case of “hermit” to me if I manage to reconnect with some folk.

Meh… still not even 6:30. Jeez. They will never get here. =)

Sunday: Cuyamaca Rancho State Park to Julian, CA (elevation 4235 feet) to pick up the frewtnut great niece at girl scouts – Julian Cafe knows apple-pumpkin pie – Then Rifftrax for The Matrix

Monday: Balboa Park: San Diego Zoo (It’s turtle mating season), San Diego Automotive Museum (Ferrari!)

Tuesday: Guy/Girl Day, where JamesT hangs out with the senior chief. I do lunch with niece at Taco Salsa (where they know her name and told on her that she’d just been there the day before) then go shopping and see Twilight at Otay Ranch mall.

Wednesday: Balboa Park: San Diego Aerospace Museum (with the Star Trek experience!), San Diego Natural History Museum, lunch at outdoor sidewalk dining on Coronado, then dinner at PF Changs, B&N and Bolt at Otay Ranch mall.

Thursday: biscuits & gravy to hold us over until turkey & ham to hold us through Wall-E to hold us through pumpkin pie, pecan pie & cheesecake (then Maalox)

Friday: SeaWorld, leftovers, and Rifftrax for “Spiderman”

Saturday: “What the Dickens?” at Balboa Park, complete with Christmas carols and grown men in elf outfits, then a drive up to Del Mar to photograph the sunset and have dinner at Jake’s Del Mar

Sunday: San Diego Wild Animal Park (great-niece in control of my camera!), pop our In-n-Out Burger cherry, and leftover pie!

Monday: Chillout with more shopping and Quantum of Solace at Angela’s mall – which is Plaza Bonita Westfield in National City. Seriously, she did that. Order pizza, watch tv, more chill out and stay up way too late for our last night.

Tuesday: Hug great-niece 2 more times before school, leave her tons of silly notes, hugemongous brunch with niece (and eventually her hubby) at F-Hop, more hugs, ride to airport where we lament not having driven around by the water in San Diego more this visit before then, more hugs, then home.

The Southwest Experience^TM has pretty much already been documented, but it should be noted that at about 2am, when we finally got home, Kitty was only somewhat insanely happy to see us and the only thing trashed from her having run of the house for 10 days was the San Diego shotglass that I’d bought on my first visit, which she’d knocked off onto the tile by the front door and smashed but good. James’ reaction, “Kitty, you could have just called us.” Yeah, we were tired.

If more fun could have been had, we couldn’t have survived it. We have 3 billion pictures to sort through.

My taking my own Nintendo DS as an extra one for any kid without at the party was apparently the coolest idea EVER, and instantly made Dennis’ little niece Abby my very best friend. Ivy had her calling me Awesome Aunt Kim, too. Anything that little 8-year-old sweetie needed, I was apparently able to provide, and I guess I didn’t realize how blown away she was by it all. I mean… I may not have picked up the sparklers and snaps, but I did get them out for the kids and light them. Come Saturday night when Tessa and the kids were heading back to the hotel, where they intended to get up early and start the long ride home to Maryland, Abby was SO sad to be leaving. Her brother, Christopher — who announced to me the day before that he was my favorite kid — was frantically trying to think of something he could leave behind that they’d have to come back for. Abby just grabbed me and said “come on”, telling her mom that I had to go with them. I got a big hug out of her, and she left me with a huge pouting lip and eyes full of tears. I, of course, nabbed her lower lip and tugged and told her I’d hang onto it so they’d have to come back for it some time. It was such a sweet and unexpected event for me. [Of course, it wasn't until later that I found out that as Sis walked them to their car with the flashlight, they'd all discovered one of Jess's friends having sex on their way out.]

Apparently put into one of my more generous moods by this sweet behavior, I went upstairs to check on our two remaining kids, the frewtnut-great-niece and drunk-ass-Eric’s sweetie daughter, who had been resigned to the upstairs living room to hang out and sleep, since the tent-city plans to avoid the drunk people had fallen through. As I walked in, they asked me if everyone was too drunk to build the bonfire they’d been promised, since we had bought stuff to make s’mores. I told them that I was pretty sure the people who had promised the bonfire were already passed out, and apologized that I didn’t really feel confident to build one myself. In a very mature statement, they assured me that they had been afraid to ask anyone because they thought people were just drunk enough to think a bonfire was a good idea and too drunk to be safe managing one, and they didn’t think some s’mores were worth anybody getting hurt. As a reward for this very mature attitude, I offered to make up the white-chocolate covered strawberries, which we’d also forgotten to make earlier, and they were very happy.

For someone who doesn’t really want kids of her own, I am apparently a rockstar with other people’s kids. Maybe it’s just because I don’t get to see kids often, so when I do, my tolerance is up. Of course, when I decided to entertain the kiddies Saturday afternoon by setting up the Harry Potter rifftrack, I only sat around in there long enough to hear a couple genital-scan jokes before I decided to make myself scarce and just let them enjoy it. What do I know from appropriate kiddie-material? They weren’t my kids! =)

Speaking of, my man had already called me earlier, just in time to catch me in front of the television riffing on Lord of the Rings… with Brad. He was dumbfounded Brad was watching it. I had to tell him, it was unplanned. I was already watching it, he came home, he heard the sound of a rifftrack and was drawn to the television. Then, it was too late. He was sucked in. Meh.. it was an okay one. It’s odd to hear them make fun of a movie that doesn’t actually suck on its own, though that statement may be disputed by other members of this household.

Anyway… somewhere after the chat with my niece had turned to discussing one of the books I’m reading, which led to talk about couples, and friends, and how far apart we live, and how much we hate that… our somber mood was broken by an instant message from brother-in-law Pete:

[21:46] Kim: pete just messaged me to look at the “Joyce’s Jeep button”
[21:47] Angela: me too.
[21:47] Angela: good god that’s a lot of text
[21:47] Kim: … text about wheels and tires.
[21:47] Kim: now that’s good girly reading
[21:47] Angela: hahahaha!
[21:48] Kim: and i see the words “oil” and “tools”
[21:48] Kim: is he insane?
[21:48] Angela: electronic ignition
[21:48] Angela: no….just an engineer
[21:48] Kim: blah blah blah Jeep blah blah blah Joyce blah blah blah… yeah.. OOOHh pictures!
[21:49] Angela: WAIT!….did he label that picture???
[21:49] Angela: he did!
[21:49] Kim: i fear he did

When I was trying to figure out what to do with myself today, other than work which I banned for the day, I considered driving over to Alabama to harass them, then realized it would be too short a trip with the girls coming over tomorrow to hang out. All my damn family is too far away. What I need is a relative I can decide to drop by for an afternoon. Some of James’ family may be close enough for that, but none of mine, and how sick would mom be if I told her I drove up to hang out with James’ mom for a Saturday when she hasn’t seen me since…. February? Sis is ALMOST close enough to spend the day with. Hrm, maybe I should dig up a phone number for Jessie. She might even be in town, though I’m sure I’m not nearly cool enough to hang out with the newly 21-year old college star right now.

Oh well. Back to my books. I’m enjoying Shadow of the Wind right now, having put “Blue Shoes and Happiness” and “Mating in Captivity” aside for the time being. It really pulled me in. Bubble bath. Book. Bed. Woohoo, Saturday Night!

Work: I’m back to the same pay, back to the same schedule, back to the same customers, back to the same everything except my old extension, because the phone system is shut down…. because the actual company is “shut down”… except it’s not. We still do what we do, we are still getting paid by FNIS, we just had to shut down our “public face” — the website, the phone system, whatever. Now we have one number that goes to one guy who essentially handles everything for us… and I thought I was having a wonderful time. Poor Jonathan.

So, I am back, but Pam and David are gone. David hired on directly by RMGA to do other things than what we did, and Pam off to her own devices. Leaving me with “Salesguy Mac” as my partner to pimp websites. Already today I’ve spent a good hour venting about how useless he is at these appointments. I might as well be going alone to these. Other than introducing himself to our three customers Friday, he did nothing else. Didn’t say another word until “Well, thanks! Have a nice day!” when they left.

Admittedly useless, though, he bought me lunch saying “it’s the only thing I could do to help you today.” That is NOT going to cut it.

Other work: The contract job that I have been working on a website, business cards, brochures, etc. etc. for decided to change their company name and direction while I was away. Today I get to do a whole new logo, as the first step toward doing a whole new website. Not thrilled.

This week: I have today at home to play catch-up from my vacation (and general job-insecurity slack-offness), then I’m out on appointments the entire rest of the week — with useless Mac. Again, not thrilled.

I’ve been instructed to email Mac a “primer on pimping sites” today, in an effort to help make him useful, but his reply to a very basic instruction I emailed him earlier doesn’t leave me hopeful. “I’m sorry, that’s just over my head. Maybe if I watched you do it once.” The instruction: “In your editlive menu, select “Insert –> Table”. You get a popup with all the table settings. Use: 1 column, 1 row, width=650, and border=0. Then just cut the text content you have and paste it into the table.

A caveman could do it…

Which reminds me: Great-niece Ivy thinks the Ziploc commercials where the woman hands her bag to the kid to close is offensive to children. It’s so easy a child could do it, she whines. How rude!

I am intrigued by the commercial for the new gameshow I saw last night, though… Are you smarter than a 5th grader? Only in America do we revel in our ignorance. Celebrate it. Laugh at it. It’s like we aren’t smart enough to know to be ashamed.

There should be a real recap of mom’s mentalness on the San Diego trip, too, but frankly I may just be too embarrassed to actually set that down with any permanence. Best to just forget it all.

Fun stuff: This weekend didn’t turn out quite as planned, but fine none-the-less. I finally ran across an ebony DS lite in the store and decided to buy it. Managed to put it down long enough to get to the grocery store, do some laundry, and clean a little house before game night. Brad’s outting for beer was of course, more appreciated by the guests.

Wait… I’m supposed to throw in a line here about how lame Ben & Maggie are… making excuses and not showing up… after I bought them a special present home from San Diego and everything. Oh well. Maybe if I’d told them about the present…

Kit & Bert managed to show up Saturday night, though. We played the Wii, a touch of guitar hero, ordered that pizza anyway, then Riffed on boron… I mean The 5th Element. That is definately a good one.

Joel’s site, www.Rifftrax.com, has a lot of new ones that we’re looking forward to checking out, including the truck-driving, arm-wrestling classic: Over the Top. Have to say also that the Reign of Fire Riff was uninspiring. Of course, Mathew McConnohowdoyouspellits character in that really didn’t need any help being absurdly funny.

Speaking of absurdity: Because He Thought He Could

And last but not least, if you’re not reading (and why not?) then you may not have heard about this movie review site, with a format that seems like something the Adult Swim people would have thrown together. Check out: www.Spill.com.

Oh yeah: Through some cosmic miscalculation, we had the dates wrong for Mr.T’s fishing trip with his Dad. He doesn’t leave until March 23rd, so that leaves us available this coming weekend to go snowboarding with Marc and Jennie… if either of us is up for it. I may be insane from a solid week of useless Mac, and JamesT is on morning CMR meeting duty this week, so he may be insane from lack of sleep. And he wanted to go see Dick Dale tonight, but that very late show would kick his ass in the morning.

And just FYI: They have cut down all the hedges in front of all the apartments here, and I think the place now just looks bald… desolate… and sad.

We also got new neighbors who have replaced crazy-can’t-park-his-big-ass-truck-in-a-space-so-i’ll-block-the-garage-doors guy, who used to do woodworking in his garage at all hours. Today, they are incessantly rearranging their heaviest pieces of furniture, hanging pictures on every square inch of wall that connects to our apartment, and apparently strangling their dog and causing him to howl. Mostly, though, they are interrupting poor Brad’s trying to “sleep in” on this holiday day.

Possible actual recap to come. For now, too much work on my plate today. Link to most of the pics

PS. I’m back to full-time work, full-time salary, and I’m booked at least through March…. or so says the pile of emails shot around while I was away. Time to tackle the pile, since I’ll be out on appointments all day tomorrow.

This year doesn’t so much start out with making resolutions as figuring out how to get over the hurdles I’ve placed with the ending of 2006. Too many things to think about.

On the bright side of recap, Christmas left me with an overall impression of being “nice”… good memories seeming to overrun the hectic in the moment ones. Then New Years was all good, perhaps best ever. We’re a family who likes to gather with our laptop computers, that’s for sure. At some point this week I have to figure out how to burn the 35 minutes of fireworks video to a DVD to share.

This week… to-do list, haircut maybe? Finish setting up the Mac Mini for Sunday delivery to Chattavegas? Christmas decorations may have to wait until next weekend.

Found out that Florida nephew is playing WoW, and he even made a character on our server to join us sometime. Now we just have to convince his wife to play, too. He’s about 30 and it’s the first computer game he’s ever gotten into, he says. He was surprised I played, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him my geeky gaming history. Guitar Hero was the game to be played over New Years, though. How many times did I explain it to new people showing up? Ugh… even Ivy can just about quote the guy from the tutorial and rolled her eyes every time someone else wanted to go through it. Some people just aren’t as smart as you, Ivy. They don’t just catch on by watching.

Great-niece Ivy rocks, btw, in case you couldn’t tell. She is 10. She digs guitar hero. She rocked our Cranium team. She is competitive. She is so happy to see you after long absences that she can give a hug that will knock the wind out of you. She is frequently found with her nose in a book avoiding people. AND she built me a teddy-bear for Christmas, and told me all about what went into it. It was about the sweetest thing ever.

All right… this sinus head crap needs to be over. I need to be able to think clearly. I think some hot steam, some meds, and calling it a night early are in order.

And, as of talking to the frewtnut niece tonight, besides finding out I am known as the “sufficiently-great aunt Kim” due to my signing great-aunt Kim on Ivy’s card, we’ve also let them know that JT and I will probably be joining them in Mexico in May. Wahoo!

But this week, we have bigger fish to fry, as in fabulous San Francisco to pack for. I haven’t got a clue what to take or do, and now that we’ve sort of committed to Mexico, I’m even more hesitant to splurge on doing much of anything out there. Thus, I will have to be a picture of shopping self-restraint since I’d rather snorkel in the heat than ride a trolley around in the cold.

And now, shower and bed. I R tired.

1) Lane splitting on the freeway is freaking me out. D was talking about people he knew who smacked themselves on car mirrors as they tried to pass, which seemed a very obvious concern when, after several sport bikes passed us, we saw the guy on the chopper with his ape-hangers. He looked WAY too wide to go between the traffic. Me, I’m just wondering why they don’t hear on the news every day here that another biker has been flattened by the crazy, barely signaling, always merging traffic.

2) My niece pointed out that California drivers in an ending lane, who are supposed to merge with traffic, just do it. It is generally the attitude that it is the responsibility of whomever is in the resulting lane to “make a hole” for the mergers, because usually… the merging traffic doesn’t even look. Verily, I say it is true and more than a little freaky to behold.

3) There are signs on the highway by the border depicting a family running (man, woman, and child being dragged behind). No text, just the image, but the “beware of people running across the highway by the border” message is pretty clear. We haven’t seen any, though on the trip to Tijuana Dennis, Angela, & Ivy attempted to recreate the pose for a picture.

4)Right now it is 68 degrees, with a SW 3mph wind. Today’s high will be 73, with an expected WSW 10mph wind. Blue skies. Absofuckinglutely gorgeous… clearly, I must live someplace with this ocean-breeze.

5) Yesterday afternoon we parked by the border and walked into Tijuana to find a good taco stand. We walk because it is apparently “risky” to take your vehicle into the country, thus Mexican insurance drive-thrus are all over, so that for $5 your car is covered there. “Risky?” I asked and was told: they don’t exactly have distinct lanes on their roads. Anywho, walking was nice, with every spare inch of space near the US border packed with booths of wares. In the end, though, five people, 24 tacos, roasted onions, 4 margaritas (which come with a shot of tequila extra), a beer, and two uber-cokes for $18. A huge bagful of souvenirs I won’t disclose, $20 after haggle. A stop at the Mexican Starbucks equivalent for three coffees for the way back, $20. Some things don’t change due to borders.