Thanksgiving

[ocelot]

Since livyanne is impatient... :)

Reading my previous entry first will make aspects of this less shocking and more understandable, so please do so :)


I flew down to Coronado on Wednesday evening. Everything went much smoother than last year - there were basically no lines at the airport, or delays anywhere along the way. I wasn't even picked out for a special security screening, which was rare even before Sept. 11. Yay.

Thursday I had dinner at my paternal Grandparents'. I think this is the last year I'm going to do this. They always have Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of their friends, who are mostly old teachers. I was the youngest. Ms. Nixon, who must be 35 or so, was the next youngest, and then my dad, then everyone else.

Not that they aren't interesting. It just gets old being the odd one out every year, especially since my brother wasn't around this year. And also since every year the conversation focuses more and more on who's died recently.

One of the old guys kept following me around. This kind of creeped me out. Later, I learned that he was not a member of their social group - he was from the church, and hadn't had anywhere else to go. So he was probably just focusing on me as the only person who wasn't already involved in a conversation. Now I wish I'd been nicer about it.

Dinner itself was good. I couldn't eat much - I usually can't these days. This is just as well, as I don't think anyone there actually ate more than one plateful. Yet another reason I don't particularly feel like returning next year, when my appetite will presumably have returned.

Before dinner, I helped my Grandmother with the stuffing. Eveything was already chopped up - I just stirred it together. During dinner, she went and made a big deal about how I made it after one of the guests complimented it. I'm not complaining really - it was kind of sweet, even if it did make me feel like a five year old.

Friday I hung out with my mom and stepdad. That was nice. We went to the Imperial Beach pier, which, being a good Coronado snob, I have never actually been to before. It rained pretty heavily for a good portion of Friday, which would have been very annoying except that it was warm rain. There's little odder than eating ice cream while rain is pouring down and the sun is shining and it's 70 degrees out at the end of November.

I talked to Henry G. on the phone. That was odd, as we haven't seen eachother or otherwise spoken in four years or so. We were walking by his mom's/grandmother's store when his mom was on the phone with him, so she put me on the line while she talked to my mom. He seems to be doing well.

They took the news about me being pregnant quite well. I love my stepdad - he's always much more supportive of anything I do than anyone else in my family, and my mom tends to follow his lead. I think the fact that two of his kids, including one who is six months older than me, had babies about a year ago helped them accept it. It wasn't as much a mental adjustment as it is for my dad.

My dad isn't happy. He feels that circumstances aren't the best, and feels this strongly enough about it that he felt the need to tell me his disapproval. Still, he's not yelling, hasn't disinherited me (to my knowledge), and is generally being friendly towards me.

My paternal grandmother seems very happy. I'm not sure about my grandfather - my mom was around at the time I told them, and he was being grumpy towards her. I don't know if his grumpiness and lack of response was due to being upset, or because of my mom.

I haven't told my maternal grandparents yet.

All in all, it could definetly be worse.

Anyways, Saturday I didn't do much of anything. My dad got a new printer, and I set that up for him. It's a nifty printer/scanner/copier/fax machine/digital camera card reader combo. I want one :) We went to dinner at a new pizza place which is owned by the guy who runs Mootime Ice Cream, who was my dad in The King and I when I was in third grade. It's your typical pizza place, located in part of Mexican Village.

Today I went to brunch with my grandparents and dad. Again, as with most of this weekend, I couldn't eat much. They had three free gift certificates, and I told them I hoped they used one of them on me, as they certainly didn't get their money's worth of food if I was the person they paid for.

I hope poor LemurBaby is getting enough food.

They've really torn up the high school. The office and the building closest to the street are gone except for the wall bordering the hallway. It looks a little odd - you can see Mrs. Chrisman's wallpaper. The science building has apparently been remodeled - it was structurally sound enough that they decided not to tear it down. The old middle school is now a part of the high school, which is a little odd. Worst off all, they've torn up the patio. The volleyball court, the picnic tables - they're all gone. It's a bit odd - like most of my good memories from high school never happened.

Tomorrow should be busy, as it's the last day of vacation - the day when I traditionally cram in everything that I meant to do but was too lazy to get around to. I need to walk down to the ocean, and get tiramisu ice cream at Mootime, and talk to some of the teachers at the high school who I'd rather tell about the baby in person rather than waiting for the grapevine to do it's work, and fix my grandmother's computer, and laundry, and probably other things I'm forgetting.

This all means I should probably be up before noon, which means I should go to sleep in the near future, so goodnight :)

Comments

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

As long as you don't expect a walking tour of Davis and don't mind putting up with me being a grump, a visit should be fine :) I also suspect that you'd have to come here, rather than us meeting you in SF or something, but that's pretty simple.

Hopefully the apartment will be a bit cleaner by that point... :)