Thanksgiving fallout
Another Thanksgiving has come and gone and what a glorious day it was. The Cowboys rolled over the Jets, the temperature outside FINALLY dropped out of the 80's around here, and I enjoyed a tremendous Thanksgiving sirloin at Benigan's (the only thing open in Dallas on Turkey Day, besides IHOP, which sucks). What about all the family stuff? Well...
At the last moment Thursday morning, sfaJill decided that she'd rather go with me and my dad to Dallas to watch the Cowboys than to her sister's house to hang out with that clan. Her reasoning was some crap about being together on our first Thanksgiving as husband and wife, but I think she just didn't want to deal with all the potential drama I wrote about last time. The plan was for us to go to the game and then hook up with her family upon getting back to Houston on Friday, which sounds easy enough.
So Friday morning rolls around; her dad calls about 10:30 to find that we're still a few miles north of Houston's far northern suburbs. Plans are made for us to go home, get unpacked and call them back when we're ready to meet up (note: it took sfaJill nearly 15 minutes on the phone to decide THAT because God forbid anybody on her side make a decision about anything ever). Whatever. We've still got nearly an hour's drive to get home.
Around noon, after we've gotten home and my dad has headed off to work, sfaJill and I are ready. She calls her dad back and thus begins another 20 minutes of that world-famous game "where do you want to eat?" The choices are finally narrowed down to Golden Corral (which is awesome) and this Chinese buffet near the house (which is also awesome), so, really, we can't lose either way. After some back and forth crap on the subject, I'm asked for my "opinion" (translation: nobody wants to decide everyone else's fate so they're going to try to get me to do it); I reply that since I had just eaten breakfast a few hours earlier, I'm not really hungry and thus don't really care where we go since I probably won't eat much either way (which actually was true). That frustrates sfaJill to no end, but it is somehow finally decided that Golden Corral is the choice.
Not five minutes later, while sfaJill is still running around the house frantically searching for a hair brush to toss in her purse, the phone rings. I answer. It's my father-in-law.
"Hello, Jack."
"Hey, Martin."
"We've got a change of plans."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, your mother-in-law wants to go to the Chinese place instead."
Sigh. I swear...
So, anyway, we all meet up at the Chinese place to find her dad, mom, brother, and 3-year-old nephew. No sign of sister or brother-in-law. We were told they didn't want to come. Good. That made the lunch actually kind of enjoyable because there is always less tension without sister there. Father-in-law even pcks up the check (score!).
It was going really well...and then sfaJill invited everyone over to our house for the afternoon. The problem? They're not allowed to bring the nephew to our house, says mother-in-law. Apparently, sister has decided that since we had such a problem with his behavior the last time he was there that it's best if he just not go over to our house anymore. Thus, my in-laws are afraid of taking him here, out of fear he will mention to mommy that he was at Uncle Jack and Aunt Jill's house and then they will catch hell about it.
(I should note that the "problem" with nephew's behavior last time was that he kept pulling cushions off our couches, jumping all over them/throwing them everywhere , and then didn't put them back on the couches after both sfaJill and I told him to stop. Sister wrote that off as "He's three! What, you think he can sit still for 10 minutes?" and after I told her "Uh, yeah" and sfaJill backed me up, sister's been "punishing" us for it ever since. This happened back in June, by the way.)
sfaJill was PISSED.
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Sam's Club in an effort to spend some quality time together, but I wouldn't call it that. sfaJill and her mom did nothing but bitch about sister the whole time, which just made everyone but the kid unhappy. It was a long day that ended with an invitation (from the in-laws) to us to come to sister's house today for something called "turkey pie." I have no idea what that is. sfaJill said she doesn't want to go if she's not welcome there, to which her dad said "Well, I'M welcoming you". So, I think we're gonna go. Should be awkward silences for everyone!
Yesterday was not a total waste though. I did find 7lbs of 90% lean ground beef for $16 at Sam's Club yesterday. Can't pass up a deal like that.
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