Friday, December 25, 2009 – Denham Springs, LA (entry begun on January 8, 2010 – finished on April 27, 2010, not realizing I’d already written a Christmas entry. lol)
What a mostly-hectic Christmas week, but an enjoyable one, nonetheless!
Went in to Hattiesburg to eat Chinese and to see Avatar in 3-D with Dad and Marlene on Tuesday. It was a visually spectacular movie. The 3-D didn’t really add much to it – wasn’t like things were flying off the screen at you or anything – but it did give the scenes more depth which was cool. Subtlety rocks.
Dad dropped me off after the movie and I spent Tuesday night at Pasha and Shannon’s house and it was good to get to hang out with them. We watched The Blind Side, which I really liked. Sandra Bullock is awesome! We chatted a bit and then went to bed. I slept in and Pasha had to work on Wednesday morning and Shannon bought her a really nice coffee table for Christmas, so she had to go pick it up and we had to put the legs on it for when Pasha got home from work. We went to Books-a-Million to look for some Christmas presents and I got Laina a signed copy of a Southern cookbook by Robert St. John, a chef from Hattiesburg that’s been on the Food channel, etc.
We dropped Shannon off at her Mom’s and Pasha and I went by Piggly Wiggly to see Aunt Betty for a few minutes, then out to Uncle Dennis’ house to visit with him and Aunt Debbie for a while. The two of them have really had it rough. Aunt Debbie’s eye has been giving her hell and she’s more or less blind in the left eye now from a really nasty infection she got. They had glued some sort of lens on the front of her eye and she won’t know whether she’ll regain any vision until it falls off and they determine if they can do a corneal transplant. Then, on top of that, Uncle Dennis is suspected to have some form of leukemia and Craig is in trouble with the law for sleeping with some underage girl. Good lord.
Pasha brought me back to Dad’s and he was waiting up for me when I got there and went to bed as soon as I got in. I stayed up and talked to Laina online and messing around on the computer.
Thursday, I helped Marlene make some homemade candy and she made a nice Christmas meal for us. We ate dinner, then opened presents. I had given them a bunch of shirts and stuff I brought them when I first got there, so I didn’t really have anything to give them.
Friday, we got up early for Dad and Marlene to drive me to Slidell. I got them to stop by the cemetery on the way so I could spend a couple of minutes there. It didn’t take us long to get to Slidell and Will picked me up there and we drove back to Denham. We laid around in his room for a while until it was time to open presents and eat Christmas dinner. Mrs. Lynnda gave me a throw blanket like the one she has that I always sleep with when I go down there. It has velour on one side and wool type stuff on the other side. I love it! I thought it was really sweet and thoughtful of her to get me one since she knows how much I like the one she has. Carol and Kevin gave me a nice reusable shopping bag with a fleur-de-lis design on it. We all pigged out – awesome food!!! – and Will and I went to lie around again until it was time for Laina’s plane to come in.
I absolutely HATE waiting for someone to arrive – be it at a restaurant, event, airport or whatever. I hate the compulsion I feel to stare at the clock or door every five seconds. So, finally, it got to be close to time to leave for the airport and I was looking at the flight tracker and it said something about the flight being delayed. Laina called Mrs. Lynnda’s house shortly thereafter to say that there had been some sort of mechanical problem with the plane and that she’d be an hour and a half late getting into Baton Rouge. ARGH! So, I paced around the house some more and finally it was time to go pick her up. I was really excited to see her and went up to the waiting area and watched as everyone came through the gate from the plane and I kept waiting and waiting and finally there was no one else coming out. I was like “are you fucking kidding me?????”. Finally, she came out, having made a bee line for the bathroom when she got off the plane. I know that feeling!
So, I got her bags at the carousel while she headed over to the rental car counter to pick up the car. She was supposed to get a car from Budget and their staff had left for the night, so Will had to drop us off at the hotel in Denham.
We got to the room and began mauling each other and fell asleep shortly thereafter. Let’s just say I fell asleep frustrated. haha Heaux, Heaux, Heaux!