It is SO weird to me that there are families in which people exchange passionate kisses in front of their parents and cousins and grandparents. I’ve been hesitant about the kiss at our wedding, when it happens, for goodness’ sakes! Our families just don’t do PDA of that sort.
Nothing dumb at my Thanksgiving…my SO and I spent it together, away from the family, so no one had an opportunity.
Well, yeah. Remember that time they attacked a US Navy cruiser with a passenger jet on a scheduled flight?
I was out of the country Thursday, dined by myself, and didn’t even (I assume) think any crazy thoughts.
My Dad and I behaved during their entire week-long visit and politics only came up once, on the last day, and it was my fault. He was telling my young son about his stint in the Navy back in the 50’s and their goodwill tour of South America, when they trained a couple of South American navies on new techniques for submarine detection.
I asked, jokingly, why we would teach other countries to detect submarines - what if we wanted to use submarines against them some day? He pointed out that the countries involved (including Venezuela and Colombia) were our friends at the time, although times change. Then he pointed out that Obama is turning Israel into our enemy.
Well that got us sniping for a bit but my mom gave us a stern look and we dropped it.
That’s crazy!
We avoided politics at our small gathering this year, but a few days prior my mother did express her dismay that, as she heard on the radio, Obama had agreed to let Iran have nuclear missiles. When I read the details of the deal, I was quite shocked to find that Rush Limbaugh had somewhat mischaracterized the facts to her.
We’re a very huggy family, and passionate kisses are expected at weddings, but yeah, that one was a bit unusual for us, too.
Complaints about local building regulations and fees. Griping that they exist and are irritating is fine, but the grand sneer at the greedy any-excuse-to-ram-a hand-in-your-pocket fleecing that is imagined to be at the base of it got a little thick. And, yeah, a couple of the regs they complained of sounded pretty arbitrary, but also sounded like an artifact of one particular development. If they were being explained correctly.
I smiled and nodded and nibbled on almonds. It shifted back to stories about house renovations and additions and stupid things that other people had done. Some people just shouldn’t be trusted with a hammer. Then on to unreasonable and irritating neighbors and the things they had done that there should be a law against.
I’m glad to hear it’s not just me. We are a huggy family, but there is no doubt that we are more than a little stuck-up and prudish about sex and sexuality. It is a matter for the bedroom, and nowhere else. However, even in our stuckupitiness (new word!), I am still amazed at people who voluntarily swap spit in front of mom and dad.
We did not have pasta, but I heard a friend say she’d rather be 40 than 20. Well, she did have a small child at 20, but in general, no.
If there was political discussion, I didn’t hear it. Last Thanksgiving I remember talk about the Keystone Pipeline (we are in the Plains more or less) and the end of Twinkies, but nothing terribly insane I guess. This Thanksgiving, I don’t know, the 18-year-old’s mother was helping her dye her hair, and I was talking to them. No politics.
My mother thinks “the President” is somehow responsible for the soaring local rents ( which to be fair are stinging her in the ass and may force a move in a couple of months ). However she’s not at all conservative, but rather a fairly paranoid quasi-Marxist.
I was “home sick” and watched Office Space so I channeled my rage at the Bill Lumberghs in my life.
No discussion of politics, but I discovered that my baby sister was evicted not due to any financial hardship that made her unable to pay her rent - she just decided to stop paying. An aunt revealed that she’s done this several times over the years, and said aunt always bailed her out because my sister had school-age children. This last time, with her kids grown, she left my sister to fend for herself. She’s now living in the house we grew up in, with both our other siblings, in the house our grandmother left them.
That’s now three gainfully-employed child-free professionals (govt lawyer, accountant, teacher) in their 40s with six college degrees between them who have all failed to manage paying basic living expenses while on their own, now living in a house fully paid-for by a cafeteria worker and a roofer who both didn’t graduate high school and raised ten children, then went on to raise the four of us when their daughter died. Yet the furnace has been broken for two years and they’ve been heard arguing over paying the property tax bill - a whopping $250, divided by three. :rolleyes:
Christ on a crutch! How hard is it to have a household account with a fixed sum going in every paycheck that is for taxes and repairs/upgrades? That is what we do - mrAru’s navy pension goes into a bank account that autopays the mortgage which also autopays the taxes, and any surplus sort of hangs out gathering interest and pays for any repairs that pop up. We also toss in about $100 extra just in case.
Sheesh, and we are a single income common scum of the earth household …
I suspect missing data in epbrown’s post.
That part is really silly - when our grandmother died and left them the house, there was a household account with a few grand in it. That money covered the taxes and utilities for the first few years, giving them the initial impression there would be no expenses associated with living there. They’ve kept up with the bills since, but begrudginly, with the clear impression that the 104 year-old woman that left them a free house should have also left enough dough to cover expenses indefinitely.
I remember that time they blew up a US Navy frigate with a mine.
A family I’d never met was invited to our family Thanksgiving at my sister’s house. The dad tried to somehow make the point that Hillary Clinton is less qualified to be president than Sarah Palin, I didn’ follow his logic, with the idea that that means all Democrats are complete idiots. Oh and Obamacare sucks, har, har, har.
His political views make him disagreeable to me. His choice of topic at a dinner where he doesn’t know everyone shows him to be an asshole.
It always surprises me how people assume others’ political beliefs are exactly like theirs. Especially far right extremists, who statistically make up, what, 20-30% of the population depending on how you’re counting. But statistics isn’t their strong suit anyway I guess.
This one, I think really is characteristic of both sides: Left and right extremists alike tend to assume that everyone agrees with them. We just notice it more in the cases where we don’t agree with them.
I remember the time the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian passenger jet on a scheduled flight.