merry christmas, one and all

Last night, my brother and I stayed up till 2:30am making jack cheese. It's air drying now. It looks pretty good. Tonight we made beer. It's out on the patio cooling off to 70 degrees so I can add the yeast. That's the more normal part of our christmas.

Let me tell you a little about my grandmother. Always batshit, she's gone even battier since my grandfather died. She told us that when she turns 100, she's going to buy a couple cartons of smokes and go to town. She quit smoking about 10 years ago because her health was so bad.

Tonight I showed up at her place, right on time, when I was supposed to, and she was sitting in her living room, watching the weather channel, in her bra. There's a first. I won't be horny for weeks, now. She started puttering around in the kitchen, until I told her somewhat politely to put some clothes on.

On the way to my mom's house, she pointed out the window, and told me that there were too many people moving to Tucson, because of all the new housing developments. "That's okay," she said, "because those will all be gone soon anyway. They'll probably be taken out by nuclear war." Yeah, my grandmother is convinced that we'll all die soon in a horrible blaze of fission.

I haven't even gotten to the parts about her being confused about what day it is, and yelling "Merry christmas, everyone!" when it's Easter. She's honestly not crazy in the bad, helpless way, but in a clueless way that is shocking in its irrelevance. I think her bloodline is what has given me the touch of obliviousness that my friends love to kid me about.

But yes, this is my Christmas. I hope yours is similiarly entertaining!