My family is fairly boring. Although my nephew, who finally moved out of his parents' house into an apartment of his own, announced he'd be conducting an experiment on the effect of alcohol consumption on video game scores. Kinda mild, as family scandles go, although his tea totaling grandmother would Not Have Approved.

My family also does not go in for gossip-worthy stuff. I mean, the latest is pretty much stuff like: My half-brother and SIL got ... a puppy! My father is ... redoing his bathroom, after finding mold and carpenter ants! My sister is... painting a wall in her new condo "Calico Rose"! My mother is... bossy!

ION I am so un-merry. I need to cowboy up and tell my father when we are coming on the 26th, get some shopping done so we and the cats eat today, figure out what to give the half-brother and SIL with the puppy, and probably I should get a present for my husband, right? Meanwhile he and the kids are watching a TV show called "Searching for Bigfoot."

I am hoping TJ's plus the pet store can accomplish most of the above.

My side of the family is boring, except for the cousin who keeps trying to friend my sister and I on FB, and we reject all of his requests, because he molested my cousin when she was a child.

All the gossip is D related, and comes from his ex, and you know all that -- that she's kinda crazy, and money-grubbing and mean. Although I DID find out --she is a local area editor for Patch, the AOL local news site thing -- that Patch really IS going down the tubes, so it's likely she'll be losing her job this year. I mean, I've been following the Net gossip about it, but she had another area Patch editor over for dinner, and they were talking, and apparently it's pretty much a given that Patch.com is going down.

Part of me is all "Heh" because she's all I R SERIOUS JOURNALIST IMPORTANT POLITICO (@@) and she's...not, but part of me is worried about how it will affect M. She's even crazier when she's more stressed than her usual state of High DRAHHHHMA make her. Also, her writing is not that great.

She made noises about getting a family rate on my resumes -- after being condescending about being "I'm a writer; how hard can it BE to write a good resume?" Her editor friend popped up and said, "Well, no, writing a resume is a real art" and I mentioned my resumes and covers cost between $250 and $500, and THAT impressed her. She also "joked" about how I should freelance copyedit for her, and I said sure; my CE rates are $40/hour. THAT ended the convo.

Again, @@.

Oh, also, I looked GORGEOUS the entire time I was there. And M kept saying things like "Erin is ALWAYS READING when I am at her house. She reads so many books so fast!" and she was kind of snotty: "I wish *I* had time to read more..." and I was all casual, "Oh, it's not a big deal. I'm slammed most the time, but since I can read 6 or 7 books in a day, and it's part of my job, it's not really a big deal..."

BOO-YA!

And she HAD to go to a meeting, and she was all "M needs his jeans changed, his nails clipped and the playroom cleaned."

45 minutes later, it was all done with no arguments or back talk. He argued with her, and her MO is to yell or demand stuff of him, and he gets all arguey and pouty and sad, and all I have to do is raise an eyebrow or start counting down from 10 and he does what I want and is cheerful about it.

I take GREAT shallow satisfaction from this...

I R petty. That's my gossip. However, we did rub along fairly well the entire time, and I was very helpful, and I did have moments of fun, so it wasn't tat bad.

(loves pretty petty Erin SO MUCH)

I could almost feel sorry for D. It's not her fault you're so fabulous and a Step-Kid Whisperer to boot.

Believe me, I wouldn't be petty if she weren't such a really basically awful person is so many ways. I would be perfectly happy to have her just be a normal harried ex, but everything is such a hateful, screaming mess on her part whenever the slightest thing happens (not just with D and I; I saw it with her current DH and with her sister and from people she used to know in KC) and she never take personal responsibility.

Usually I am too lazy for petty...but this time, it's personal.

I am hoping TJ's plus the pet store can accomplish most of the above.

TJs on Christmas Eve? You are a braver woman than I.

We got up early to bake, since today is lunch with Dad and then dinner with Mom and Stepdad (plus Stepdad's small yet incredibly loud and chaotic extended family), so we have to get out the door by 11:30. Mom requested corn muffins for tonight, which are a snap to make, but Tim was also baking schnecken, which uses a yeasted dough, so there was rising time involved [that's what she said] and other complicated shit I don't know about. So we had a complex schedule worked out of what baking stages of which baked good would happen when.

And it all actually worked on schedule! In this house, that's a frigging Christmas miracle.

The great thing is, Erin, that by not going the ultra-glam route you were able to show her up by just being yourself and being better at life in general, thus depriving her of the satisfaction she'd get from you trying to show her up.

I think you're right, Matt. I'm glad I went the way I did.

And with that, we are off to Iowa!! To my sane in-law's! Woo!