Holiday Catch-up...
Aight, so I haven't posted in a little while, so I'm going to do a quick synopsis of the holidays. I hope everyone else's was cool n all. I'm sure that everyone has their own little stories to tell.
As for me, Christmas was almost uneventful. I made a few calls. Watched a few Christmas movies. Played a few songs. But overall, it just didn't FEEL like Christmas. For one, my mother and I never bothered to decorate the apartment for Christmas. For the first time ever, our house went bare. The Christmas bug just never really hit us. Hell, even present exchange didn't go as it would traditionally. I gave my mom an iPod Mini (y'know, despite the fact I was dissing the unit when it first came out last year, I caved in and bought her one because of its usefulness in such a small case) and one of those "Scene It" DVD games. And, I didn't get anything back in return. I was like, "What!? No gifts!!?" My mother said that my Christmas gift was going to be the business suit she was planning to buy me for my eventual job interviews when I start applying for jobs when I graduate from college. But, that gift was nowhere to be found. That was a purchase that was going to be made "sometime in the future." So for the first time ever, I had nothing to open on Christmas morning. It was so weird. I mean, I wasn't complaining, but at the same time, it was a feeling that I wasn't used to before. My momma, though, being the darling she was, felt bad for me, so a few days later, she bought me an X-Box. So I guess I just had Christmas a little late this year. :-)
In the meantime, my mother LOVED the iPod Mini. I mean, the first day she got it, she slept with it. She was lying in bed with it like, "My Precious...." With her dancing around the house with her headphones on, to God know what music she was listening to, she was a living, breathing, iPod commercial. And with my living room colors, oh yeah, it definitely WAS an iPod commercial. I've never seen her so happy with a gift before. And if it makes her happy, then it makes me happy. :-)
On the 31st, my mother and I took a flight to Houston, TX, where we visited the rest of the wacky members of my family. It's kinda hard living practically alone in NY while the rest of the fam is in Houston. I mean, we have some isolated pockets of family in NYC, but the core group is all in Texas. So, being with them again has been refreshing, as it usually is. I got to celebrate New Year's for the first time outside of NY. It was...different. I was staying with my Uncle Angel and the rest of his Mexican in-laws, along with other family members and their Mexican in-laws. And needless to say, with a whole bunch of Chicanos in the house, things are done differently than what we're (a Cuban, Puerto Rican family) used to. For one, no one bothered to turn on the NYC broadcast of the ball dropping. Instead, the television was turned on to the local Mexican edition of Univision, where some local Tex-Mex band was singing their hearts out about some chick who left them with only a can of dog food to eat. And then, when it came time to do the actual count down, we saw people getting suitcases ready by the time the clock struck midnight so they can run around with them. As my aunt later explained, there's a Mexican superstition about how people need to carry suitcases when the clock strikes 12 in order to have good enough luck to travel a lot during the year. All I could say was, "Okaaayy...." as I took another swig off of a Corona. Still, it was fun. The rest of the night was spent watching my cousin Raul trying to shark money off of the rest of my fam in poker. I was just waiting for someone to do something completely stupid in drunken splendor, but alas, nothing of the sort happened.
Since my grandfather is staying with my uncle Angel, and I've been staying with him, I've been able to see Abuelo everyday. Health-wise, he's no better than he was when I first saw him over the summer in the hospital, the last time I went to Houston. It's still hard for me to communicate with him, and he really doesn't have control of his muscles. He's bed-ridden, completely. Regardless, I've been trying to make the most of it, just chillin with him, and just getting him to laugh (though I think it's more for me than it is for him). None of us think he's going to last for too much longer. It's only a matter of time.
My little cousins can be so cute, but they can also be such little terrors. I don't know who it was, but one of them scratched the shit out of my Nintendo DS, so now I have to send the thing to Nintendo to get it repaired. I'm not sure if the thing will be covered under the warranty, but I can only hope so. It wouldn't be cool to be running around with a scratched up DS that's only two months old. I made sure to promptly beat the living crap out of all of them. Some of them might be innocent, but hell, at least I know I got the right one. :-) "Cousin Ray plays rough." Damn skippy, biatches.
One of the cool things we did was that we played a round of lazer tag against another family, 8 on 8. Man, we completely annihilated that other family. A few of us didn't know the difference between shooting them and shooting us, but, regardless, we still scored something like 98,000 to 32,000. We DESTROYED them. I guess that just shows you how rough and violent we are compared to other families. :-)
Tomorrow, I'll get to celebrate my cousin Raul's birthday. It should be fun. I'm sure I'll have pics to post afterward.
As for me, Christmas was almost uneventful. I made a few calls. Watched a few Christmas movies. Played a few songs. But overall, it just didn't FEEL like Christmas. For one, my mother and I never bothered to decorate the apartment for Christmas. For the first time ever, our house went bare. The Christmas bug just never really hit us. Hell, even present exchange didn't go as it would traditionally. I gave my mom an iPod Mini (y'know, despite the fact I was dissing the unit when it first came out last year, I caved in and bought her one because of its usefulness in such a small case) and one of those "Scene It" DVD games. And, I didn't get anything back in return. I was like, "What!? No gifts!!?" My mother said that my Christmas gift was going to be the business suit she was planning to buy me for my eventual job interviews when I start applying for jobs when I graduate from college. But, that gift was nowhere to be found. That was a purchase that was going to be made "sometime in the future." So for the first time ever, I had nothing to open on Christmas morning. It was so weird. I mean, I wasn't complaining, but at the same time, it was a feeling that I wasn't used to before. My momma, though, being the darling she was, felt bad for me, so a few days later, she bought me an X-Box. So I guess I just had Christmas a little late this year. :-)
In the meantime, my mother LOVED the iPod Mini. I mean, the first day she got it, she slept with it. She was lying in bed with it like, "My Precious...." With her dancing around the house with her headphones on, to God know what music she was listening to, she was a living, breathing, iPod commercial. And with my living room colors, oh yeah, it definitely WAS an iPod commercial. I've never seen her so happy with a gift before. And if it makes her happy, then it makes me happy. :-)
On the 31st, my mother and I took a flight to Houston, TX, where we visited the rest of the wacky members of my family. It's kinda hard living practically alone in NY while the rest of the fam is in Houston. I mean, we have some isolated pockets of family in NYC, but the core group is all in Texas. So, being with them again has been refreshing, as it usually is. I got to celebrate New Year's for the first time outside of NY. It was...different. I was staying with my Uncle Angel and the rest of his Mexican in-laws, along with other family members and their Mexican in-laws. And needless to say, with a whole bunch of Chicanos in the house, things are done differently than what we're (a Cuban, Puerto Rican family) used to. For one, no one bothered to turn on the NYC broadcast of the ball dropping. Instead, the television was turned on to the local Mexican edition of Univision, where some local Tex-Mex band was singing their hearts out about some chick who left them with only a can of dog food to eat. And then, when it came time to do the actual count down, we saw people getting suitcases ready by the time the clock struck midnight so they can run around with them. As my aunt later explained, there's a Mexican superstition about how people need to carry suitcases when the clock strikes 12 in order to have good enough luck to travel a lot during the year. All I could say was, "Okaaayy...." as I took another swig off of a Corona. Still, it was fun. The rest of the night was spent watching my cousin Raul trying to shark money off of the rest of my fam in poker. I was just waiting for someone to do something completely stupid in drunken splendor, but alas, nothing of the sort happened.
Since my grandfather is staying with my uncle Angel, and I've been staying with him, I've been able to see Abuelo everyday. Health-wise, he's no better than he was when I first saw him over the summer in the hospital, the last time I went to Houston. It's still hard for me to communicate with him, and he really doesn't have control of his muscles. He's bed-ridden, completely. Regardless, I've been trying to make the most of it, just chillin with him, and just getting him to laugh (though I think it's more for me than it is for him). None of us think he's going to last for too much longer. It's only a matter of time.
My little cousins can be so cute, but they can also be such little terrors. I don't know who it was, but one of them scratched the shit out of my Nintendo DS, so now I have to send the thing to Nintendo to get it repaired. I'm not sure if the thing will be covered under the warranty, but I can only hope so. It wouldn't be cool to be running around with a scratched up DS that's only two months old. I made sure to promptly beat the living crap out of all of them. Some of them might be innocent, but hell, at least I know I got the right one. :-) "Cousin Ray plays rough." Damn skippy, biatches.
One of the cool things we did was that we played a round of lazer tag against another family, 8 on 8. Man, we completely annihilated that other family. A few of us didn't know the difference between shooting them and shooting us, but, regardless, we still scored something like 98,000 to 32,000. We DESTROYED them. I guess that just shows you how rough and violent we are compared to other families. :-)
Tomorrow, I'll get to celebrate my cousin Raul's birthday. It should be fun. I'm sure I'll have pics to post afterward.
posted by djkibblesnbits at 11:56 PM
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1 Comments:
Glad you had fun @ least. I'd like to go to Houston. Then again, I want to go everywhere. Who knew?
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