Socks

I spent a few months (!!??) knitting a pair of socks for my bestest friendy. She loves them, and that's what matters--especially since she was willing to forgive getting her birthday present for Christmas.

This also means that I am now free to knit the pairs to 2 single socks I have trolling around my knitting....heap. One is for my sister (uuugh.) and one is for my ex coworker and friend J. Guess which one I started first? I hope to finish J's sock ASAP (I'm on the heel already!) and then bang out the one for my sister so I can give it to her at Christmas.

Since, you know, my aunt told me and my cousin that she was going to call my sister and invite her to the last family holiday or some shit, so I decided to play the 'dear sweet baby sister' card and tell my sister that the house was being sold and whatever, since she already knew....right?

Wrong. I totally blew it. I told her, she didn't know, and now they're GOING. So whoopdee do.

My cousin said a very interesting thing today. He said that holidays, especially holidays after kids are grown/matriarchs and patriarchs have passed on, are a time when the 'clique-y lines in the sand' are drawn. When people make choices as to who in the family they like, and want to spend time with. Gone are the obligations, gone are the needs to prove anything....mostly.

Unless, of course, you're talking about my family, where if you offer a free meal and no need to help/bring anything, the whole crowd will show up. Also any opportunity to get gossip or dirt.

My sisters hate my aunt, hate me, don't get along with our cousins. Yet they're going to waylay staying home and doing Christmas together with my niece and nephews, people they seem to enjoy, to come spend the holiday in a crowd of people that can't stand them and vice versa. Because it's FREE! Because they won't have to COOK! Because they'll be WAITED ON and can attempt to glean insider information about me, auntie, cousins, whatever, to be used against us later.

I was by no real means looking forward to this holiday, but I wasn't inwardly cringing at the idea of spending a holiday with the 3 members of my blood family that I know love me (cousins). But now...Now I'm cringing. It's going to be me, my cousins (who are going to spend part of the holiday with their father), my aunt and uncle (delightful people though they are, ha) and my SISTERS.

Fuck, I may as well load the car with a case of whiskey and head over to my mom's place.

But I agreed to go, and now everyone is expecting me, so I will go. I want to spend one last holiday at that house. I suppose this just shows how much.