Sunday, December 25, 2005

Hillbilly Festivities

No. It wasn't Festivus for the rest of us, though my Brother-in-law
the mayor and I would have gone for it. We are big Seinfeld fans.
We both got Seasons 5 & 6 for Christmas. Our little hillbilly family
gatherings had some highlights, as usual.

We kicked off the season at my Hillbilly Sister's house for an
evening of finger foods, gossip, poker, and wine tasting. That
sounds good in print, huh?

HSis has a beautiful house on a country blacktop road IN TOWN.
They have a cleaning lady, and have had an interior decorator, and
their kids are 16 and 19, so they don't mess up the house much.
Compared to their place, ours looks like an abandoned FEMA
site. HSis went all out, so I have to give her props. She had hot
wings, taquitos, pizza snacks, salad, little smokies, dogs-in-blankets,
(no, PETA, not real canines, just little smokies in some kind of puff
pastries), chicken fingers (don't go there), cheese sticks, chips &
cheese dip, cookies, candy, veggies, cupcakes, and Chex Mix
(supplied by me). It was great, she spent all day getting it ready.
The only bone I have to pick with her is that she billed the affair
as an evening of finger foods, and then tossed in the salad. But
I didn't dare say anything, because I would never be able to put
in the effort to pull off something as well as she did.

The kids and grandmas played Texas Hold 'Em in the basement
rec room. HH, HSis, mayor, mayor's bro, mayor's bro's wife, and
I stayed upstairs to discuss world events. By this I mean: people
we know who...use double names like Annie Beth (almost all the
people we know), were named for their dad (like Rolinda has a
dad named Roland), have bad breath, are certifiably nuts, may or
may not be half-Jewish (the question being that the name sounds
German), have set themself on fire, are anorexic but are "huge"
during pregnancy, dye their hair, revealed too much for jury
selection, go to only one cantata practice and while there say,
"In measure 23 I notice a quarter rest but nobody rested--is that
going to be the way we sing it?" Oh, and we discussed people
who adopted Chinese babies, but they were really Guatemalan
babies, but "HH, you can bring home some armloads of Chinese
babies from your trip and make some money adopting them out."
Yes. We are so wrong. On so many levels. We won't rehash
the Colombian Necktie conversation.

Today we had Christmas Dinner at my Hillbilly Mama's house.
She elected to carry in Warehouse BBQ this year, which was
fine with us, because we also had the left-over finger foods.
The idea was so my Hillbilly Mama could relax and not have
to cook, but she was still 45 minutes late with warming things
up, so my kids even ate something today, what with it being
1:45 before they got lunch, and they'd been up since 5:15.

I had an embarrassing fashion faux pas when I thought I had
stepped in something in the yard. It wouldn't scrape off the bottom
of my shoe, so I had #1 son take a look as I was setting down
some presents. "Oh, it's just the sole of your shoe peeling off,
Mom." Hey, I'm not that poor. I just have a pair of New Balance
that I really like. I have 3 other pairs at home that have not been
worn. Plus the pair of them my teaching buddy Mabel gave me,
and only ONE of those shoes has been worn. Now I will have to
break in a new pair. My niece, who has Hillbilly Mom for her
middle name, got a pair of Uggs. She tried them on, and I had to
tell her they were on the wrong feet. I hope that doesn't reflect on
her namesake. She used to be in gifted classes, but got mad at
the teacher and quit.

I heard my 88-year-old Hillbilly Grandma and my Hillbilly Mama
discussing my aunt, who had fallen off a ladder:

"I seen her at the Post Office, crippling around."
"She's been using a walker. I hear she's not doing so good."
"She didn't look good."
"Well, you know, she broke her pelvic."
"No, she couldn't have broke it. Then she couldn't walk. She
must
have cracked it."

We get hillbillier by the day.

Somebody thought an old lady at church said she liked her hair.
So she replied, "Oh, it's all windblown today. It's a mess." And
the old lady shouted, "I SAID, I'm glad you could be HERE!"
Because around HERRRR, that's how they both are pronounced.
Hair and here. Not quite as bad as Loretta Lynn says it, but listen
to Nelly and you'll know what I mean.

If you came here looking forward to seeing how my Hillbilly
Husband offended all of Europe, I put that off until tomorrow.

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