Oh, Burlesque. You make me feel dirty, but I do want to see you.

My mom does the meara-mom thing. Tells me anything but important stuff; she figures if my sister, who loves with them, knows, then I know.

G'ma is still hanging in but it's obvious that she is in the "transitional" stage and she's in a lot of pain.

askye, I hope she has a peaceful passing and you and your family are in my thoughts.

It turns out I am really picky about stuffing/dressing but I can't articulate it until I realize what I don't like. I love nommy-to-me stuffing but I don't know if I like the whole genre.

Mom is still here and it's almost entirely good. Everyone else leaves in the morning so we're no longer trying to juggle a lot of different people who are passively-passively aggressive at best. We all just try to guess but no one *says* what they want out of habit.

So much wonderful food eaten, wine drunk, fires sitted near and sights seen.

OH! My uncle and uncle in law got me a hostess gift the first night we were here. A set of creme brule ramekins and a mini-torch!

I set dessert on fire tonight. And live to post the tale.

{{{askye}}} I'm sorry. You're all in my thoughts.

Meanwhile, Hollaback Israel is getting TONS of positive feedback. Kinda gobsmacked about it all, really. I'm so used to be in the "nobody understands me" position, that it feels unreal.

Hivemind question: I haven't legally changed my name yet because I am waiting for the official marriage certificates to come in. In the meantime, what do I do about checks made out to Mr. & Mrs? Do both of us have to sign them? Can TCG sign them over to me so that I can deposit them in my account?

A check made out to two people must be signed my both people, unless both people are on the checking account. TCG can sign it over to you.

OH! My uncle and uncle in law got me a hostess gift the first night we were here. A set of creme brule ramekins and a mini-torch!

Cass, that's a freakin' AWESOME hostess gift; I want a torch BAD....

If you happen to be having a nice brisk walk down a sidewalk, everyone waves at you from passing golf carts. and they have separate garages for the golf carts.

Some of my mom's friends live at The Villages. My mom likes going to visit them, and she kind of wants to retire there, but my father really doesn't.

Do they say, "Be seeing you" and refer to you as Number Six? I can see where that would disconcert...

Great Black Friday picture: [link]

Don't wanna go to work. It's cold out there. And I may have stayed up too late finishing avatar last air bender.

Omnis, how long are you at work? I'm down in that area again today for the company preview.

Am home! It's freaking wonderful to able to get to my sister's house in 2 hours instead of nine! And back home in 2 hours, even better! We had a really nice T-day. The nieces were nice to each other, and even hugged goodbye. No drama! Youngest niece is preparing to move to the Virgin Islands for her dream job, and oldest niece has a very good chance of getting a job she really wants that will allow her to work from home doing something she likes and give her flexibility to still work with her band. So with luck soon those two will be squared away and we can worry less! I think what made T-day especially calm and pleasant this year is there was only the four of us. My sister's boyfriend was off at a game, and neither niece currently has a boyfriend or any stray friends who needed a place to go on T-day. Also, everyone had something else to do on the weekend, so we all left Friday evening, instead of hanging out together for four days and pushing the limits of our patience with each other.

And I was "good" and only had a couple pieces of pie and a few bites of stuffing! There was plenty of food I could eat, like turkey and ham and "blackened sweet potatoes" (that's sweet potato casserole that my sister forgot about and burned the marshmallows on top). First holiday I didn't gain any weight. I still have to lose 8.5 pounds in 3 days to win this bet, though. Think I'm gonna lose.