I got up early this morning!

Just kidding…I’m still up. Another Shakespeare paper, another sleepless night. I titled this one “THE FOOL: The Irreverent-Wisdom Card of the Archetype Tarot Deck.” I’ll have to see how the grades turn out…

So let’s play catch-up…before my brain crashes…

Had a somewhat spontaneous trip, with the extended family, to visit a long lost relative in Colorado. My cousins and my Grandma picked me up on Tuesday night, in a giant van. So I had a 20+ hour trip with them in a van and it was………………….MADNESS!!!

I was worried about my grandma opening up certain religious bits of conversation…while this didn’t happen (at least not with me singled out) I discovered the fact that the woman, whom we all love greatly, is insane. She’s scared of drizzling rain, night time, two lane roads, and any slight change in her environment (“The air feels cool from the vent…why’d it change!”). She made panicked if we did not drive five under the limit.

Then came the blizzard in Kansas. All hell breaks loose. Now there was a situation that was genuinely worrisome which only encouraged my Grandmothers general pessimistic paranoia. I think we counted some 40 cars and jackknifed trucks in the ditches. Then we took a slight wrong turn down a treacherous road and the accusations flew like…well…snow.

And I found that though my cousins all have pretty voices when we pray the road rosary…afterwards, the voices turn shrill and their complaints become petty, copious, and grating. Travel, with large groups, means delays…and here I was with a group of people going insane over twenty minute delays on a 20 hour trip. Ahhhhhhhh!!!!

The whole trip, Nick used NyQuill to sleep and I scoffed at that. But then the snow argument reached its height and I found myself chugging NyQuill to escape family members in the same vehicle as I.

Before loosing consciousness I told Nick that I forgave him for talking me into going on the trip. We both giggled, secretly, while the stress wars ensued around us.

But the trip wasn’t all bad, there were laughs between the groans and it eventually ended. I spent a few days in a very nice house of my very well off…second cousin?

Thanksgiving was pleasantly sedate. We played Risk. We ate. We became immobile. We played cards.

Friday morning I woke from the most terrifying nightmare I’ve ever suffered. I woke clutching my scapular.

That day we went out and saw a waterfall and climbed some rocks. I played with my little cousins. I played with the older ones. Steve and I fell asleep listening to audio fiction by Poe and King.

My Grandma played in the titanic Scrabble grudgematch between her and Andy (the cousin we were visiting…apparently this Scabble rivalry has been building for years…as both of them are unbeatable). The rest of the family even gambled on the outcome. I bet on Grandma…and doubled my dollar investment (“I don’t want to put any pressure on you Grandma…BUT I NEED THIS!!!”)

Then there was the drive home and it went quicker and without incident.

I got my fill of programmed, Right Wing Catholic dogma for one year (including the fact that gay marriages and abortions are part of a Communist plot to weaken our country). These conversations always leave me outside, and in the middle somewhere…no matter which side is speaking to me. One side has no problem killing anything in the womb…and the other side has no problem killing everything outside the womb. And they both claim the moral high ground. And where does that leave me?

But, besides that, I had a good time. I get along with my cousins. I’m the one (along with Steve) who gets the laughs going and that’s a position I like to fill.

But now I’m back and I made my New Years resolutions early…to beat the holiday rush…

Oh…and I need new shoes…