We totally kept my ex-aunt-in-law in the divorce. We liked her better. We kept her.

When one of my uncles got divorced in his midlife crisis after decades of marriage, we kept our aunt as part of the family in her own right. The new girlfriend didn't become part of the family in the same way, and was kind of outraged that she wasn't the one treated as the grieving widow a few years later at his funeral. (Whatevs, losing the father of your children trumps losing the boyfriend your lack of support helped send on his downward spiral, Ms. Cheap Substitute.)

I can't imagine a hospital discharging a 13yo unaccompanied, into a cab these days. I suspect that CPS would get involved, so there's that.

I've privately told my SIL that no matter what happens to her marriage she'll be part of my family. Not that it's been necessary, but since my brother was going through a fraught (inpatient alcoholism treatment) time it seemed like a good thing to remind her that she was free to make her own decisions without fear of losing our side of the family's support.

I think any of my siblings would pick me up. They don't always like me, but they wouldn't leave me stranded.

A pox on Sumi's brother! Not on, dude!

Hey, all!

Merry holiday aftermath!

I caught up in Natter when we got home last night, but I was too tired to post. Sumi, that's terrible. Your bro needs a little nad jab.

Amy, I LOVE the "12 Days of Buffistamas!" We should film it and watch it every year...

Lessee, Xmas was great! M was disappointed we didn't have a white Christmas, but it was sunny and clear the WHOLE time we were traveling, so Dan and I were thrilled with that.

My in-law's are really nice people, and we had fun at their house. My MIL introduced me to candy cane martinis, with are quite yummy, as well as festive. Dan was googly-eyed with tech lust [link] as he got a slammin' surround-sound system for the TV. He plans on putting it up tonight, and we are gonna test drive it with Thor tonight. I got him and M the 4-7 Harry Potter Wii game, and he got the Avengers coffee mug from me, the caffiene molecule travel mug from my mom, t-shirt material sheets, and a really nice sweater and cords from Banana Republic from my sister, who took him shopping to get the size right. Plus other assorted geekery. Best thing I ever did was pointing my mom at ThinkGeek.com

I got this: [link] from ThinkGeek from mom (IT IS SO CUTE!) and M got a Lego Star Wars alarm clock from there that's out of stock now -- my mom starts shopping in January, yo. He aso maxed out on Angry Birds: [link] and [link]

I got the freaking metallic Smashbox cream eyeline palette, WOO, and some other stuff, including a shitton of owl stuff and the new coat I've been wanting! [link] and [link]

Also, Wii Jeopardy is very frustrating the first time you play it, but then it just addictive. As a team, Dan and I KICKED ASS. Directly competing with each other, though, it could destroy our marriage....

Today is The Great Clean Up, Target run, Eyemaster's run (M's glasses arm broke, and grocery store run.)

I slept like a frickin' ROCK last night.

Does this look like me: [link] ? My sister thinks she looks like me. All can see are the differences.

Does this look like me?

Not at all. this picture even less so.

Christmas continues here -- both brothers and their fams are coming for brunch. So I'd better get dressed and the place cleaned up....

I had the house to myself for an entire day yesterday! This has not happened since... a very long time, several years I think. I did a few constructive things, dishes, laundry, a bit of clean up of Christmas debris, a couple errands, fixed a couple of minor car issues, and upgraded the memory on my wife's laptop. But I did lots of non-constructive things, writing, revising (okay, that's technically constructive since I'm prepping that novel for submission, but it's the relaxing kind of constructive), playing Skyrim (wherein I married a werewolf), and ate pizza while watching the book 7 movies of Harry Potter (which I had not seen before).

not at all, ita. wrong nose, wrong face shape. a little in the eyes with the raised eyebrows, maybe.

I have yet to get out of bed. I am committed to doing one thing for/to the house each day, so I am trying to decide before I dress. I really think I may list a bunch of stuff on ebay and actually decorate the tree. I am committed to keeping it up through mid-January anyway. I gave up on the idea of outside decorations and will pack up the few that are out today.

Maybe laundry also, I folded a bunch yesterday, and the wash can go while I do other things.