Holiday Greetings, and Entertaining Family Stories

Holiday cards are out, presents have been presented, and travel is mostly done: as of Christmas, my holiday season is now pretty relaxed. I will inflict one of those "holiday letter" year-end summaries sometime in January, after this year is done. If I suck and failed to send a card to any of my dear readers... well, crap... sorry and happy holidays!

I've only been home for 24 hours, and I already have some stories. At dinner last night, my mom confirmed that my earlier suspicions on being set up were well-founded. She was wondering if I wanted to come to one of her Long Island Japan Society events, to "meet some Japanese girls," because the other mothers said that they would love to introduce me around. Something about mom's delivery made me put the 'spam spin' on it (i.e., "HAWT HAWT JAPANESE GIRRLLLZZ 4 U!!!!"). Yes, I just used the blink tag here... it seemed like a rare appropriate use.

Anyway, my mother kindly didn't press me on this front, and commented that she thinks that group events are a lot more reasonable than one-on-one blind dates, which I am in complete agreement with.

Then my sister immediately responded with, "And you should be careful, because New York State does not look kindly on men fathering children out of wedlock: child support payments can reach up to 17% of income up to $80,000, and up to 25% on higher incomes. I just recently read a case in which the man is on the hook for child support payments after having sex with the woman just once..."

Um. Yeah. WHATTHEFUCKISWRONGWITHYOU, SIS?!?!

Yes, I realize that protection and birth control is a valid concern. However, that was one of the most jarring and left-field interjections she's given in a while. I really need to get my sister out and about a bit more: I figure that if she starts making these "comments from space" around my friends, the incredulous stares and laughter might provide some negative feedback for her behavior.

Anyway, my parents adopted a kitten who is currently scampering around the house. I think they are accepting the way my sister and I turned out, and have taken the kitten as a surrogate grandchild. It's very fun to see my mom and dad cradling the kitten and cooing at it in Japanese—guess that's one way to get the pitter-patter of little feet.