Mishegoss and Misunderstandings
Dec. 7th, 2006 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thessalianSo apparently, all those months ago when I met ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dodgyhoodoo's mother, we discussed Christmas plans - the possibility of being driven up to and back from his mother's place by his sister on either Christmas or Boxing Days. No solid plans were actually made, or else I'd have come home panicked and been stressing over it for the past several months, because I'm like that. And it never got mentioned again, so nothing ever got confirmed so far as we know. So we made our Christmas plans for Sourcebook Central pretty much as we did last year, except for a minor abberation wherein we're going to Mum's on the 27th. Because, y'know, she asked when was best and we discussed it and came to an agreement and confirmed everything except exact time, which is allowed to be vague anyway. So that's Christmas locked up - the plan was that I would roast another duck, partially to tinker with the glaze recipe I came up with last year, and all that good stuff.
Except now I get a text message fromdodgyhoodoo in which I discover that plans have been confirmed without us and we're apparently supposed to be spending Christmas Day at his mother's place.
Um. Not to be rude to the soon-to-be-in-laws, but WHAT THE FUCK?
Okay. I got that out of my system. But honestly, what the hell is going on? I know I vague out about plans sometimes but not evendodgyhoodoo is aware that this ever got confirmed our end. And it wouldn't make sense for it to have been, at least not in recent months - hello, the long-term illness? Going to Mum's is going to be bad enough - public transport and all, y'know - but at least in that case, I have the option of saying, "Sorry, I'm not feeling well and really need to go home". I can't do that when I'm reliant on someone else for a ride, or indeed at all since it'd be fucking rude. And even if I could, it still means however long in a car back, and I know from experience that cars are even less comfortable than public transport for me right now.
I can't go. Not feeling like this. I mean, yes, it's been a bit worse recently what with the antibiotics and all, and I can expect at least some improvement after that wears off, but not by that much. At least it's a better excuse for spending a quiet Christmas at home than "Well, you never brought it up again after the summer, so we kind of made our own plans that we were quite looking forward to, actually".
Thinking about this, though, I suppose part of the problem is my not being used to juggling various family branches over the holiday season. I mean, my Christmases have tended to look like this:
As far back as I can remember-1988: Opened presents at home; went to Nanny and Grampa's for Christmas dinner and more present opening; Dad and Uncle Barry would drop in at some point and maybe stay for dinner.
1989-1992: The Bumblefuck Years. Mum and I would open presents at home, pile into the car with gifts for the relatives and drive to Nanny and Grampa's. Christmas would then repeat as above. Stepdad (before he became Stepdad) came to visit and drove with us to Nanny and Grampa's at least one year - that was the year he shared the driving, sped abominably, got stopped by a Smoky and had to show his photoless British driver's licence while Mum dug not one but two expired registration cards for the car out of her handbag.
1993-1998: The Letchworth Years. We'd alternate; either Mum and I'd fly out to Montreal and spend Christmas with Nanny and Grampa (see above) or we'd stay home with Stepdad (still before he became Stepdad) and have his kids, father and aunts over on Christmas or Boxing Day.
1999: The Wilderness Year. Owing to a total breakdown in relations with Mum and a lack of desire to stay in my horrible grotty flat that may or may not get nailbombed by the White Wolves on New Year's (it didn't. Damn shame, really), I spent the holiday period with my then-fiance's family in Wales.
2000: The American Year. Still not talking to Mum, went to the US in the middle of complete nervous breakdown, wound up spending Christmas with the family of a friend of mine from the Daria fandom. Christmas with a house full of Mormons was interesting...
2001 - 2003: The London Years. As the English Years, only all of the English Christmases were in Mum's London flat.
2004: Again, not talking to Mum, and had no real desire to spend Christmas alone. Socorone was nice enough to pick me up from the flat I was sharing with cholten99 at the time and drop me off at Sourcebook Central 1.0, where I had a lovely Christmas with dodgyhoodoo and weaselbitch despite (or possibly because of) the lack of lights owing to the people in the flat above Sourcebook Central 1.0 accidentally flooding out the kitchen and blowing the lighting ring. Bambi and copious amounts of alcohol were in evidence, and I made Mystery Pudding; it was great.
2005: First Christmas withdodgyhoodoo. I was talking to Mum by then but wasn't comfortable enough with the relationship to do the Christmas thing, so no arrangements needed to be made on that score. We just sat home and ate duck and watched the DVDs we got for Christmas. Again, another fabulous holiday.
Note the total lack of multiple arrangements there. I either had to make sure I was in a certain place at a certain time, but I was always the one being juggled, and there was really only one set of family to see. Every time there was a SO's family issue, I wasn't talking to my own family so it wasn't an issue where I spent the holidays. And, of course, I wasn't long-term sick for any of those. I would much prefer if this whole thing were ... y'know, easier.
I still can't make my damn forum work, and my support ticket to my host says something about how it doesn't offer help with scripts. So I've deleted the lot and plan to upload it all again later on this afternoon, in the hopes that when it gets loaded on a server with MySQL already in place, it'll actually work. If not ... I dunno what I'm going to do if not. Find another way to set up a forum that isn't going to get spammed into oblivion like our Affils phpBB did. But right now, I'm having the whole "antibiotics are making me sick" issue and the horrible stormy weather we've been having today is wreaking havoc with my knees and my sinuses in equal measure, so I'm not going to do that right now. Don't know what I am going to do, but ... well, I'll think of something. What I need to do at some point is get some pictures of the Square Mile and Covent Garden for the Settings page on CoC (now up in incomplete but not too bad form). Still, doesn't need to happen this instant - nothing's going to happen with this game anyway if I can't even get a forum set up...
dodgyhoodoo's mother, we discussed Christmas plans - the possibility of being driven up to and back from his mother's place by his sister on either Christmas or Boxing Days. No solid plans were actually made, or else I'd have come home panicked and been stressing over it for the past several months, because I'm like that. And it never got mentioned again, so nothing ever got confirmed so far as we know. So we made our Christmas plans for Sourcebook Central pretty much as we did last year, except for a minor abberation wherein we're going to Mum's on the 27th. Because, y'know, she asked when was best and we discussed it and came to an agreement and confirmed everything except exact time, which is allowed to be vague anyway. So that's Christmas locked up - the plan was that I would roast another duck, partially to tinker with the glaze recipe I came up with last year, and all that good stuff.Except now I get a text message from
dodgyhoodoo in which I discover that plans have been confirmed without us and we're apparently supposed to be spending Christmas Day at his mother's place.Um. Not to be rude to the soon-to-be-in-laws, but WHAT THE FUCK?
Okay. I got that out of my system. But honestly, what the hell is going on? I know I vague out about plans sometimes but not even
dodgyhoodoo is aware that this ever got confirmed our end. And it wouldn't make sense for it to have been, at least not in recent months - hello, the long-term illness? Going to Mum's is going to be bad enough - public transport and all, y'know - but at least in that case, I have the option of saying, "Sorry, I'm not feeling well and really need to go home". I can't do that when I'm reliant on someone else for a ride, or indeed at all since it'd be fucking rude. And even if I could, it still means however long in a car back, and I know from experience that cars are even less comfortable than public transport for me right now.I can't go. Not feeling like this. I mean, yes, it's been a bit worse recently what with the antibiotics and all, and I can expect at least some improvement after that wears off, but not by that much. At least it's a better excuse for spending a quiet Christmas at home than "Well, you never brought it up again after the summer, so we kind of made our own plans that we were quite looking forward to, actually".
Thinking about this, though, I suppose part of the problem is my not being used to juggling various family branches over the holiday season. I mean, my Christmases have tended to look like this:
As far back as I can remember-1988: Opened presents at home; went to Nanny and Grampa's for Christmas dinner and more present opening; Dad and Uncle Barry would drop in at some point and maybe stay for dinner.
1989-1992: The Bumblefuck Years. Mum and I would open presents at home, pile into the car with gifts for the relatives and drive to Nanny and Grampa's. Christmas would then repeat as above. Stepdad (before he became Stepdad) came to visit and drove with us to Nanny and Grampa's at least one year - that was the year he shared the driving, sped abominably, got stopped by a Smoky and had to show his photoless British driver's licence while Mum dug not one but two expired registration cards for the car out of her handbag.
1993-1998: The Letchworth Years. We'd alternate; either Mum and I'd fly out to Montreal and spend Christmas with Nanny and Grampa (see above) or we'd stay home with Stepdad (still before he became Stepdad) and have his kids, father and aunts over on Christmas or Boxing Day.
1999: The Wilderness Year. Owing to a total breakdown in relations with Mum and a lack of desire to stay in my horrible grotty flat that may or may not get nailbombed by the White Wolves on New Year's (it didn't. Damn shame, really), I spent the holiday period with my then-fiance's family in Wales.
2000: The American Year. Still not talking to Mum, went to the US in the middle of complete nervous breakdown, wound up spending Christmas with the family of a friend of mine from the Daria fandom. Christmas with a house full of Mormons was interesting...
2001 - 2003: The London Years. As the English Years, only all of the English Christmases were in Mum's London flat.
2004: Again, not talking to Mum, and had no real desire to spend Christmas alone. So
corone was nice enough to pick me up from the flat I was sharing with cholten99 at the time and drop me off at Sourcebook Central 1.0, where I had a lovely Christmas with dodgyhoodoo and weaselbitch despite (or possibly because of) the lack of lights owing to the people in the flat above Sourcebook Central 1.0 accidentally flooding out the kitchen and blowing the lighting ring. Bambi and copious amounts of alcohol were in evidence, and I made Mystery Pudding; it was great.2005: First Christmas with
dodgyhoodoo. I was talking to Mum by then but wasn't comfortable enough with the relationship to do the Christmas thing, so no arrangements needed to be made on that score. We just sat home and ate duck and watched the DVDs we got for Christmas. Again, another fabulous holiday.Note the total lack of multiple arrangements there. I either had to make sure I was in a certain place at a certain time, but I was always the one being juggled, and there was really only one set of family to see. Every time there was a SO's family issue, I wasn't talking to my own family so it wasn't an issue where I spent the holidays. And, of course, I wasn't long-term sick for any of those. I would much prefer if this whole thing were ... y'know, easier.
I still can't make my damn forum work, and my support ticket to my host says something about how it doesn't offer help with scripts. So I've deleted the lot and plan to upload it all again later on this afternoon, in the hopes that when it gets loaded on a server with MySQL already in place, it'll actually work. If not ... I dunno what I'm going to do if not. Find another way to set up a forum that isn't going to get spammed into oblivion like our Affils phpBB did. But right now, I'm having the whole "antibiotics are making me sick" issue and the horrible stormy weather we've been having today is wreaking havoc with my knees and my sinuses in equal measure, so I'm not going to do that right now. Don't know what I am going to do, but ... well, I'll think of something. What I need to do at some point is get some pictures of the Square Mile and Covent Garden for the Settings page on CoC (now up in incomplete but not too bad form). Still, doesn't need to happen this instant - nothing's going to happen with this game anyway if I can't even get a forum set up...