...or the dogs that shoot bees out of their mouth and when they bark they shoot bees at you.

I got home yesterday to a giant box from my mom, by way of the Everything Jewish website/catalog. Yes, it's a real place. The best thing about this catalog is the truly weird shit, like the bag of plagues (or, more accurately, cheap plastic things that sort of symbolized plagues) mom sent me a couple years ago, or this adorable plush Torah they used to have. Not that one on the site now; he's weird looking.
So here's what I got:

It's a plush Judah Maccabee! He's like 18" tall. I can't wait to have him meet Tree. Tree, incidentally is MIA, by which I mean he's probably under a bunch of laundry I haven't gotten around to putting away yet.

By some miracle, the unwrapping lasted for 8 nights:

But then the cats had plenty of twisties to play with, including the one I broke and left in the box, which Legs spent 10 minutes with his head in a too-narrow box trying to rescue. Because the 300 other bits of plastic around the apartment he's commandeered to play with aren't enough.
Here's Judah off to buy some Kosher for Passover food. Or, standing in front of where I keep my perpetually in progress ill-fitting Koigu gloves.
But wait, there's more! I also got a tenpin toy bowling set where each pin represents one of the plagues suffered by the Egyptians. That's right, BOWLING with the PLAGUES. Hell's yeah.

And here they are all artsy and backlit and shit.

I kept the key. It's easier to figure out what some of them represent than others.


They're all such happy plagues!

...except for "1st Born".

Only my mother would send me a Maccabee and a plagues bowling set as an Easter/Passover present. Although I prefer to think of it as a psychic YA-circ-stats-doubled-this-month present. Yeah, that's right--teen materials went out twice as much as last month. I am a golden god.

Vase of carnations from central Ohio.

In the words of the lovely Stacey, I am so punished right now.
Let me explain.
I was supposed to leave work at 3:30 yesterday afternoon. I wound up finishing work at 3:45. I wound up leaving the library at 4.
Then I drove around town for 2 hours looking for 2 large bottles of reisling. Does reisling even come in a large bottle? At one place, the proprietor started to get on me about the disparate types of wine I was attempting to buy (also a bottle of cabernet sauvignon). With my last ounce of class, I managed to not precede my explanation of the different people drinking different wines with "Listen, Bub..."
Then I went out to dinner with Stacey, Melissa, and Ashleigh, and that was pretty fabulous. As was the strawberry margarita.
Then I went home and proceded to pack my car full of as many boxes, crates, etc., of books, records, cds, fabric scraps, legos, etc., as I could. Pausing for a lengthy and repetitive conversation with my one remaining sketchy neighbor about our crap landlord.
This morning, I was up at 6:30 and on the road around 9. First I had to drop my apartment key with Melissa, who has once again agreed to look in on the jerks from time to time while I'm gone. What can I say? I think she's a saint, actually.
I spent a good part of the first leg of the drive taking my life in my hands and texting while driving.
Oh, did I mention I woke up with the beginnings of a cold this morning?
I hit Thanksgiving, accident traffic, and rush hour in 3 of the 4 large cities I pass through to get to my parents' house.
And all those boxes of heavy, heavy books and records and things? They all went up 3 flights of narrow stairs into my next apartment. By me.
I'm going to go fall over now.
On the plus side, though, I did hear "Do They Know It's Christmas" for the first time this year around Washington, PA.

The neckbone's connected to the wrist watch.

(Is it neckbone? I can't remember.)
In case anyone wanted further proof of my family's wackiness.

I'll be acting as family bootlegger again this year for Thanksgiving. Anyone who's ever bought alcohol in Pennsylvania knows why.
My mom sends me a check for a few bottles of wine, and she usually includes a note.
Here's this year's:

Here's the money for the wine. Please use it carefully as I am still trying to save for the operation. (huh?)

You know, in case anyone was wondering where my nonsequitory goodness came from.

He likes Steely Dan, so I refuse to let this title be a song quote.

What I'm all riled up about, after running to CVS on my break (in addition to just realizing I forgot one of the things I went for, which would have upped my bill to enough to use my other coupson): finding a goddam Father's Day card. Like it's not hard enough finding a gift for my dad, I also have to do this every stinking year (at least, the ones when I'm not feeling collage-y). And every year it gets worse, because I refuse to repeat a card, even though I'm sure my dad wouldn't remember.
See, here's the thing: neither (niether? damn ie) of us are stereotypical, normal, traditional. Whatever you want to call it, we aren't. Hallmark, etc. have pretty clearly marked out what they think the typical father-daughter relationship is, and it isn't us.
The Hallmark dad likes watching sports all the time (mine will occasionally watch a Steelers or Pirates game, if it's a particularly important one--invariably, this leads to swearing as, let's face it, us yinzers don't have nonsucky teams. It's a thing we do.). He watches a lot of other TV (mine does that annoying intellectual "TV is crap" thing, while still watching said crap--annoying, but not really the basis of a good card). He golfs. He grills, and, while my dad does cook, I've never seen a card poking fun at a science dad's turkey-trussing methods. And, is it just me, or is Hallmark dad kind of a noninvolved asshole?
Some of the cards do make learning to drive jokes, and that used to be relevant, but I think referencing something that happened almost 10 years ago is a bit ridiculous, like we haven't done anything together since. We have, it's just that there's also no Father's Day card that says, "Thanks for going to see pretentious postmodern contemporary art installations with me when I know you prefer impressionism,"* or "Hey, did you see that thing on the New York Times website about those tiny chicken-looking dinosaurs they found in China?"
Hallmark daughter is a spoiled daddy's girl brat. She's still dependent on her father, and has him wrapped around her finger. Leaving aside how insulting I find the idea of a girl in her mid20s still calling her father "Daddy", I'm just not that girl. Will I ever open up a potential Father's Day card that says, "Thanks for picking out a drill for me, so I can put up shelves to display my collection of other people's prom glasses"?
Last year, I finally went with a card with a picture of a '77 punk guy on the front that made some crack about opening the door to your daughter's date to find said punk guy. I wrote, "He's a Republican," and left it at that.
With time running out on my break, I finally found a thank-you card with a picture of a donkey on it. My dad likes donkeys; he thinks they're cute. I crossed out the message with a big, ball-point X and wished him a happy Father's Day underneath.
[This doesn't seem too Sarah Vowell, does it? I'm listening to The Partly Cloudy Patriot, and I sometimes pick up author or narrator voices of things I like.]

*Should impressionism be capitalized?

the Thanksgiving recap

Dear god, driving from to Pittsburgh sucks. Especially when you stop at the Volvo dealership first to get the code so your stereo will actually work and the computer tells the jerk employee that your car does not, in fact, have a stereo. Oh, I think, so that's why I've been using the lighter to power my cd player and some cheesy walkman speakers. It has nothing to do with all that battery drama: I simply have no stereo. Then I went to Wal-Mart for wine and a six-pack (I've become the family bootlegger since I'm the only one who lives in a state without Quaker-made liquor laws) and my cashier was useless, even by Wal-mart standards. Really, the only things keeping me entertained on this drive were pleading with the giant storm clouds to avoid where I was driving on 71, 70, or 79 (thank you thank you thank you) and the pretty song I made up about driving through the Wheeling Tunnel.
I like the way Wheeling, WV looks a lot. Of course, I've only driven there on my way home, and what I should probably really be saying is, I like the font they used over the Wheeling Tunnel. I tried listening to The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place audio book during the drive, but my speakers weren't loud enough/it was boring. I think I'm going back to elementary school Jessy's original Konigsburg rating: just not that interesting. But it's nice to see Molly Ringwald earning a paycheck, no?
So I get to my parents, finally, and I'm trying to park on their bigass, brick-paved hill and it's not going so well, as there's a full foot of smushy, slick, wet leaf mess next to the curb. My dad suddenly materializes, and you know, there's really nothing that irritates me more after an insane drive than someone watching me park. I guess I got spoiled by my street being filled with so many un-lived-in houses for so long, because I really resent having to back up and do a full parking thing.
Incidentally, this is also my biggest beef with the SUV that's shown up on my street here in , with the Big Momma sign in the front and the "It's only kinky the first time" bumper sticker: it's parked where I have to use reverse to park in my favorite spot.
But then I get up the steps and into good ol' 1106 and everything's great. The pumpkin tart smells amazing, my cousin's on the phone telling me about this wonderful vacuum cleaner she got (though, since it doesn't turn dust into gold or move around by itself or is completely silent, I'm failing to be awed, even with the this-is-how-my-friend-caught-his-cheatin'-wife story. And if I was on "Last Comic Standing", I'd be cracking something about how that's how she finally got her husband to do some housework, but I'm not. And if I was, I'd be too busy chatting up that Iranian Jew kid to tell any bad jokes, anyway.), my sister's starting in on the first of 3 tantrums she performed over the weekend (I named them Martha, Semantics, and Reverse Psychology, if you're interested) and no longer liking Heinekin, or however it's spelled, and kicking my ass at Scrabble, Brett's getting ready to do his trick (he hops into your hand, because he wants to be petted so badly!).
And the greatness continued all weekend. Yumminess on Thursday; creepy urban mall with random Joseph Beth, Hong Kong Rice Bowl I've been dreaming about for the past couple weeks, kitties dressed as food, dragging Lara into the comic book store and hanging out with wonderful family friends, including people I hadn't seen in a long long time on Friday; Ikea and Spongebob on Saturday; and then the drive home on Sunday, which wasn't quite as bad, even with the pulling out-leafmess problem, probably because I gave up on Ringwald and Konigsburg.
And yes, I bought a couch. Not either of my first two choices, but now that I've finally got its 863 pieces together (cracking a couple in the process, grr), a damn fine couch nonetheless. It's this one, but blue. And it fit in the car, with no swearing at all! Now I just need to figure out what happened to my triangular pillow.
Kitten arrival: T-minus 2 days, and counting.