And a happy new year

This Christmas at my house was more hectic than I usually expect, because every time I check my family has another member. That’s an exaggeration, but all seven original Musgraves were crammed into my parents’ house on Fox Island, plus my brother’s wife, Dina, and their new baby, Allison – it’s like the last season of a mediocre sitcom, when you can tell the writers have been doing too much cocaine and all the scenes, rife with half-witty barbs, end with a close up on one of the baby’s smiling foibles. “Oh, she tipped over!” “Oh, she grabbed the dingly bird toy!” “Oh, her diaper is bursting with gravy!” I’m not complaining here; I love the baby, love her as much as amber ale, soft-core cable porn, and vicatin combined, and have spent many happy hours lying on my belly trying to elicit a smile from an individual who, far from being able to tie her own shoes, can’t even control her own bowel movements. I’ve been trying to teach her to crawl, but she’s not a very quick study. Apparently it’s something you just have to figure out on your own.

Rob also brought his two dogs, Indiana and Montana (they got the dogs before the baby, and I for one was terrified the latter would end up named “Dakota” or “Alabama”), to mix it up with our own adorable mutt Max. I won’t mince words here: although both dogs have their adorable, big-eyed moments, I don’t especially like either of them. Montana, a tiny little something or other with curly blond hair, is as dumb as a rock. Her broad repertoire of tricks include “drooling”, “staring vacantly into space”, and my personal favorite, “don’t respond to me shouting your name, but then come over and hump my leg unprovoked despite the fact that you’re female“. Indy is definitely more intelligent, but she needs to go into rehab for her fetch habit – she will fetch a ball until her heart explodes. Indiana doesn’t rest or eat, as far as I can tell, all of her time being consumed with finding a toy, dropping it at a human’s feet, waiting breathlessly for them to throw, and then retrieving it and repeating. She doesn’t understand phrases like “no more” or “go lie down,” relentlessly pestering you until you give in and throw the toy, which only encourages her. If the house were burning down, Indiana would drop a squeak toy at the feet of the firefighters. To make matters worse, Max is insanely jealous, both of the other dogs and the new baby. He’s already been in two fights with the smaller but stupidly fearless Montana, and if Indy weren’t so passive about Max’s growling bum rushes to steal toys from her, there would be real trouble.

Imagine, if you will, all nine humans plus the three canines jockeying for seating and presents in my living room on Christmas morning. Not that there weren’t enough presents to go around; the pile was two feet deep and extended two feet out from the base of the tree. I chucked around the idea of going to the basement crawlspace and adding support to the floor at the point, but no one took me seriously. Everyone seemed to get what they wanted more or less, except my Wavebird wireless Gamecube controller, which was out of stock when my dad tried to buy it. When Alex was home for Thanksgiving, he saw a Gamecube system chilling in my parents’ closet, intuited that it was for him, and proceeded to make smart-ass remarks concerning it. In retribution, my brother and his wife, who got it for him, left that present out from the pile. When the space under the tree was bare, Alex sat with the rest of his gifts – including a Gamecube accessory from me and a game from our parents – and looked devastated. He felt better after we showed him the goods.

I tried to add a little spice to the holiday by labeling the “From:” space on all my presents to my family with either the names of indie rockers (Ben Gibbard, Chris Walla, Doug Martsch, Isaac Brock) or intriguing phrases (“From: the whispering ruin of middle-class morality”, “From: death’s sweet embrace”). They seemed to like it. I made out pretty well materialistically myself, receiving, in part: the new Shins CD; Mario Kart Double Dash; The Wolves of the Calla; fleece pants, a fleece jacket, and fleece-like sweater; Chaco sandals; and, best of all, a combination espresso / coffee maker from Rob and Dina. This last will be invaluable in the weeks to come, which I’m tentatively pronouncing the Quarter from Hell. Again, I’m not complaining, but I’ll say with a straight face that Baby Allison received over three times as many gifts as I did. I wonder if it’s possible to kill an infant with love? For her sake, I hope not. I got her Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure on DVD, which, as I explained, she will need in a few years.

Although Rob and Dina agreed with my logic, this same explanation brought only ridicule from Brett, Erin, and Lisa a few nights ago. We hung out and played Cranium, the “game that uses your whole brain,” while drinking sweet alcohol, “the substance that degrades your whole brain except the libido”. Lisa and I lost very badly, then Brett and I won handily. It was good to spend some time with the old high school gang again. Lisa and I invented a new drink: 1 part watermelon Puckers to 3 parts pink champagne. We couldn’t agree on a name, but I’ve taken to calling it the “pink lady”. Unless that’s a name of a drink already, which isn’t clear at this point. And Erin got me a hilarious (and uncannily appropriate) refrigerator magnet for Christmas, the message of which you’ll have to come to my apartment to see. I’m sure I’ll be seeing more of them before the break is over.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have presents to play with and babies to amuse.