Dirk’s mother is entirely too pushy about the Christmas thing. She wants Dirk to go over to her house for Christmas Eve (“because there won’t be a bunch of people there and we can celebrate as a family”) and Christmas Day (“so we can open all our presents together, you can come in the morning and stay allllll day”). Fuck her. I’m tired of spending holidays separate from Dirk because his mother is a holiday loon. (As a side note, she did put up that horrid wreath mentioned in the last entry – it’s on the bathroom door. And Satan Claus is going insane; it now goes off constantly, without any movement to activate it.)
I won’t eat at their house because his mother’s cooking makes me want to vomit; everything’s cold by the time we eat and she offers up some truly horrid “all american” cuisine. I’m also not good with the scent of really stale cigarette smoke mixed with cooking odors. Dirk won’t go to my parents’ house because 1) his mother would be horribly offended, and 2) my parents are shitheads to him (especially my mother).
The whole point of this is that we’re spending Christmas eve with our folks and doing our own thing on Christmas day. Vegetarian Christmas dinner, spending a lot of time together. That’s what I want, along with a goddamn tree. Either my parents or his parents are letting us use their old Christmas tree. I don’t like his parents’ tree because the stand’s broken and it looks like something bad exfoliated it. Agent Orange, perhaps. He doesn’t want to use my parents’ tree because he doesn’t like them. Sigh. At least we’ll have some kind of tree.
I’m slowly becoming a vegetarian, did I mention that? I mean, I make exceptions for great things like chicken and shrimp (mmmm...shrimp), but the bulk of my meals are now vegetarian. This is by sheer dint of effort on Dirk’s part, and my inability to find new ways to cook boneless, skinless chicken in a way that he doesn’t find offensive. Gristle, fat, and any connective tissue is offensive, people. So is curry (heartburn) and stir-fry (not filling). Anything involving rice (much to my dismay) is a no-go, because he invariably ends up hungry.
So, I make beans for burritos, calzones, vegetable lasagne, and vegetarian chili. I have expanded my knowledge of vegetarian soups tenfold. I don’t really mind because it’s healthier and I never much liked the smell of raw meat. What I am impressed with, however, is the selection of mock-meat products available these days. I bought these breakfast sausage patties from Morningstar Farms on Saturday, and they honestly did taste and feel like real sausage, albeit the brown-n-serve kind. But still! The amazing things they can do with tofu and textured vegetable protien.....
I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to totally give up meat (and seafood), but we’re getting there.
Did I mention that Dirk’s mom has Christmas toilet paper? You can wipe your butt with Santa and Rudolph.
I didn’t really do anything this week-end, besides making veggie subs and watching movies on our digital cable. The first was Ghost in the Shell, which satisfied my love of anime (does anyone else remember previously referring to it as Japanimation?), while creeping me out. I didn’t like seeing her arms ripping apart. Since it was a classic, and one of the few things the digital cable raters gave 4 stars, I also saw The Dirty Dozen. I thought the white-haired guy had all the acting ability of a zombie – forgive me if he’s someone famous I should be bowing down to. Apparently, I’m one of the few people on the planet who disliked The Brady Bunch, so I wasn’t surprised when The Brady Bunch Movie didn’t light my fire, either. Whoever was playing Jan needs some acting lessons. She sucked.
I’m such a huge Bill Murray fan that I watched Scrooged when it was playing on USA (or TNT?), and we all watch The Matrix whenever it comes on. We’re freaks like that.
Dirk is learning to drive a cab, so he went out for training Friday night and it screwed up his entire week-end. He slept all day Saturday and most of the day on Sunday. That’s my excuse for parking my ass in front of the T.V. and eating lime chips all week-end.
