My weekends, they disappear

So I had quite the weekend. It started on Thursday night, when I met Allison for a beer at Uno's at, like, midnight, and then we went back to my place for Brandi Carlile youtube videos and The Simpsons Movie. And perhaps more beers. We both passed out on my bed at, like, three before the movie was even over, but we woke up, and Allison stumbled home. She also gave me the best Christmas present: a lesbian gift bag, containing a hemp bracelet, some hardware ("Say something lesbianic." "Home Depot." "k.d. lang! You are a lesbian!"), a rainbow-ish scarf, trail mix, a cat calendar, and cat treats for Chuck. And then she also threw in an entire bag of mellowcreme pumpkins, because I wrote that whole blog entry about them. Allison is the best.

On Friday, I drove up to New York to see my dad's parents and younger sisters, and I finally got to meet my brand new cousin, Jacob. He is the cutest.
We're twenty-three years apart, me and Jake, so everyone kept calling me "Aunt E" (my dad's family calls me and my brothers by our first initials, because my dad likes to speak in abbreviations), and then being all, "Oh, no, she's his cousin," so then I got dubbed "Cousin E," which sounds so, like, 19th century America or something, but whatever. He's kind of fussy, still, but when he's in a good mood, he's a real heart-melter.

I also love spending time with my dad's family, because they're all mental, and I usually spend the entire time just laughing. We played a rousing game of family Trivial Pursuit, which took forever, because it was the ancient one from before the fall of the Soviet Union, and it gave my grandparents an edge, but I know some things too. We ultimately tied, and I won the game with a roll of the die. A cheap way to win, but my team won nonetheless. Upstate New York is so boring and depressing, though, especially the Utica area, so I spent two hours in a Barnes & Noble on Saturday night, and my gift card is gone. God damn sales tax, though--if I'd used the gift card at home, I could have bought another book instead of having four measly bucks left over and using it at Starbucks. Bleh, I hate Starbucks. I run on Dunkin'.

I do not like, however, how Dunkin' Donuts is trying to class itself up or whatever, serving fancy drinks and lunch! Who wants lunch food from Dunkin' Donuts? I go there for coffee and breakfast sandwiches in the middle of the day. I do not need Dunkin' Donuts to sell flatbread sandwiches. That's just ridiculous.

Then on Sunday, I met my mom in Albany to see her parents, and it was not as fun. I've never felt like I fit in with my mom's family, even though her dad is really nice and all. I just feel like we're the rejects--I felt that way even before my parents got divorced. But I always felt like I belonged to my dad's family. I don't know, whatever. I can't wait until Jake is walkin' and talkin'. He's not that much fun now, at three months old, but he is cute, and he's a good smiler.

On my way to Utica, I finally was able to take a picture of this sign my brothers and I have been obsessed with since our youth:
That is a real town in western Massachusetts, my friends: Belchertown. Where all the world-class belchers live, I imagine. Despite the fact that I've been driving by that sign for twenty-three years, I've never actually been to Belchertown. My brothers and I would fit right in, I bet.