Merry Heavily Qualified Xmas

Found unexpected unlocked WiFi, accessible only from the corner of my parents' room. As usual, Xmas here is a soup of frustration with cold chunks of grace floating in. The current crisis is Ricky refusing to eat any dinner because he caught dad spooning extra butter into the food before it went in the oven. Dad denied it (while holding the buttery spoon) and then went outside to sulk. When I went upstairs some minutes later to investigate better WiFi spots, mom triumphantly proclaimed to Ricky that his awful behavior had driven me away.

Every day is like this, with them; the only thing that makes Xmas special is that I'm here, too.

This year everyone hates the Chinese. Mom wrote "From China" on all the presents she gave, as a way of grumbling over perceived trade imbalance, and speculating on the gifts' lead content. And this has potential for actual biting humor, but then she goes and rails in all sincerity about how everything is made in China now and how we clearly lost the Cold War and I remind you this is a woman who buys everything in Marden's or Wal-Mart. I am refraining from having any conversation with her on this topic.

But my dad liked Wii Sports bowling so much he wanted to play twice, so that was pretty good. Talked to Peter and Aunt Jan on the phone.

I'll be returning tonight.