Tis the Season

The Hawaii trip was canceled, BUT I still had a great Christmas in the Windy City. Arriving in Chicago, the outside temperature was a measly -9 degrees. Luckily, I had on six layers above the belt. However, jeans, which are the only kind of pants I wear casually, don't fare too well in sub-zero temperatures. And neither do gloveless hands. Needless to say, I discovered these facts the hard way. From the next day on, I wore pajama pants under the jeans. I would've been ok with the weather had it snowed, but it didn't, so I was really pissed. All of the above describes things that have happened annually for a number years, yet clearly I still haven't acclimated myself to the urban tundra that is Chi-Town.

The only thing worse than the weather in Chicago were the shenanigans of T&M. T is my brother. M is my cousin. Now, my brother and I have our quarrels and whatnot, probably far more than most siblings, but we USUALLY get along ok nonetheless. But M provokes T. Upon arriving at M's family's house, T started his East Coast verbiage immediately, referring to me as the following, which are conveniently defined below, since God knows NO ONE outside of DC is aware of these terms:

Bama: originally meant to describe a person with no or very little fashion sense; a poor dresser; the term has since been bastardized by T to be synonymous with the word "loser"

Mark: originally meant to be a synonym of the term "bitch", referring exclusively to males; occasionally, the term was synonymous with the word "punk" in its original prison-borne meaning; the term has since been bastardized by T to be synonymous with the word "idiot"

Swan: no idea what this means; possibly synonymous with "fag", given the context

One would think that extended use of these terms against me by my dear brother T would have an effect on me, but consider this. T, upon hearing the word "spontaneity" on TV, claimed that "that nigga just made up a word" and M, after using the word "sophisticated", claimed "See I used a smart word. Sophisticated." M and T are 17 and 18, respectively.

There was one thing more annoying than T&M during this vacation. The Cal questions. When I had been at my friend's house earlier, his guests made all the predictable comments. "I hear it's VERY liberal there." "Are there really that many asians?" and my favorite "What's Cal? OH, UC Berkeley. Why do you call it Cal?" The Cal questions were just as prevalent in Chicago, albeit a bit Black-er, if you know what I mean.... "There aint NO black chicks at that school, are there?" "Berkeley? You must have an asian girlfriend, huh? Now don't get all rice-lovin' me!" "That racist school. You need to go to Howard." Yes, the Cal questions and comments were quite irritating, but they were also very entertaining. And even when I tried to say "It's a Top 20 school" in Cal's defense, someone would always know off-hand that it was TIED at 20 with some other school. Or they would call whoever rates the schools racist.

Though I spent the first part of Christmas morning alone in a living room, the second part sleeping, and the rest watching some bad movie, the rest of the day was great. The big family dinner was like a reunion, where the whole family, including my grandmother's nine children, their children, and their children's children, would gather to have a huge feast.

The food












Me, my bro, and a few cousins












Grandma and others












Me and my uncle












It was at this event that I realized I hadn't had home-cooked AA-style food in a VERY long time. Too long. Afterwards, I kicked my parents' and relatives asses, all of whom are over the age of 50, in Boggle, an addictive word game. I chose to bask in victory rather than take note of the fact that I was the only one who wasn't drunk on egg nog.