Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Artie likes broccoli

Most of the time, broccoli is passed up by well meaning people. Not to hurt broccoli's feelings, but sometimes, it's just a matter of personal tastes. Artie is living proof that anyone can learn to love this often rejected vegetable.



Sniff test.






Hmmm. Think I'll try this out.










Thank you ma'am, may I please have another?

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Christmas is not for assholes

Warning to readers: This post contains explicit content! I can't even read parts of it aloud to myself!



Let me begin by telling you the story of how I thwarted evil, the night of Christmas Eve...



Due to large increments of snow this year, we were forced to stay in Olympia for Christmas. Deciding to make the best of it, I urged Bruce to call some of his co-workers and see if any of them were in our same predicament. If so, we decided we would invite them over to share a Christmas dinner with us, and have a nice place to be on Christmas.



It bit us in the ass.



Bruce made a few calls to some people he knew didn't have any families nearby and one by one, they informed us that they had either made it home or had figured something out. At last we called Jason. Jason didn't have any plans in particular and was spending the weekend with another of Bruce's co-workers, Jeremy. Jeremy hailed from Chicago and his flight home was not scheduled until the day after Christmas. They both agreed that they would like to come over and spend Christmas day with us.



After a few hours of having spoken to them, Bruce suddenly received a phone call. It was Jeremy and Jason asking if they could come over 'now'. We were excited by having guests over, and said of course they could come.



They came over. They had been drinking a little bit already, at least Jason had. Things started out fine enough. They were talkative and friendly.



Then the ass biting began.



The two men began to tell us stories of having been stationed in Korea and what it was like to live there. The food was great, the bars stayed open until you were ready to leave, and the streets were dirty because you could pull off anywhere to pee. I was immediately reminded of a familiy vacation, fifteen years ago or so, where my aunt was forced to make my cousin, Alex (then just a child) pee in an alley behind a dumpster because no one in downtown Seattle would let her use their restroom. So when peeing in the streets of Korea was referenced I said, "Reminds me of Seattle..." but before I could explain WHY, Jeremy replied, "Yeah, well, it's full of Asians."



Uhhhhhh...



"Maybe you should look at my family photo over there.", I said as I pointed to a picture two feet from his head. Not that the only reason I thought his statement sucked is because a large percentage of my family consists of people adopted from all over Asia, Korea being one of those places, but jees. Way to start out with the small talk buddy. He turned his head to look a the picture but my comment was otherwise left unacknowledged.



The ass biting continued.



They proceeded to touch on a variety of racist topics. The also were obsessed with the words "fag" and "faggot" as they tended to use it often in converstation and said they thought some women liked to hang out with homosexual men because they wanted to "turn them". They proudly referred to one another as "nig", which later escalated to the full usage of the N-bomb. One of them got into a text messaging fight with some girl who used him to buy her kids all their presents this year. Jerry Springer style. Then, they even made fun of the turkey we planned to prepare for them.



Now, don't think for a second that I was letting any of this slide. Not in my house and not any day let alone Christmas Eve. Each time they said something racist, homophobic, sexist, or just plain stupid I called them out on it. I was polite, but direct and as the night went on their behavior worsened. They would apologise and then do it again later and my boundary setting got less and less gentle. "We're just joking.", they would respond. "We're not making fun.", was another popular retort. Chances are, if you have to continue to insist either one of those things, you're guilty of it.



One of our guests had referred to me as "The Homemaker" earlier in the evening. Despite having put a stop to it then, for some reason our guest Jeremy decided he should do it again. It went something like this:



"I need another beer."

"Have The Homemaker do it."

"No. Don't. She needs to save up her energy for all that cooking she's gonna do tomorrow."

(Insert eruption of laughter by two idiots here)



At the time this was said, I was trying to get my stubborn laptop to go online... for Jeremy. The one insulting every inch of my moral being. So I snapped the laptop shut, set it on the table and announced, "Well! I've had enough, I'm going to bed."



I would have been happy to have walked out and made my point by peaceful protest, but they insisted... "Oh, c'mon, are you serious? We're just joking!" They reiterated.



Time to chew some ass.



I turned to face them, and from the doorway I proceeded to open a very firm, effective can of whoopass. I pointed out that I was the reason they had been invited into our home. I informed them that I was trying to give them a nice place to be on Christmas. I called them out on the obnoxious things they did the whole night through. I told them they offended me and that they didn't know a damned thing about me or the sacrifices I've made to be with Bruce that got me where I am today. I told them that it was incredibly rude, the way they ignored me when I asked them to stop.

I told them they were assholes.

I walked out of the room with Bruce right behind me.



The next morning we awoke to a beautiful Christmas morning. Snow blanket the earth outside, gifts were piled around our twelve inch tall tree, and the only two people in the house were me and Bruce. It was truly a miracle of Christmas.