Good food, good company

Yesterday was almost a total loss as far as getting "work" done (at work). That's okay: I got some stuff done, nothing major, talked a lot about our software with colleagues at a meeting (and found some new-to-me cool stuff).

I was a little extra-flighty, though, because my brother called at 8 a.m. to remind me that he and his wife were in the City to the Northeast (BCN)--where I was on Friday--for a workshop/training session she needed to attend (regarding software, ironically). So, while I drove an hour to MY software meeting, Beast scrambled around the web looking for possible meetup sites for us, my nephew James who lives south of the BCN, and my niece Katherine who lives much closer toward the Giant City Directly to the East (GCDE). Del, my brother, called James and Katherine and left messages about meeting up.

When I got back to work about 1, I looked at the choices Beast had compiled, picked what looked like the easiest one to access from major highways (we have a GPS, so does Del, and James has lived in the area his whole life so would probably find us regardless...but Katherine is not familiar with the area at all). Set the time for 7. Called Del and gave him the address. He said he'd call James. Katherine called me around 2:30 to see what we'd discovered.

She is a HUGE pain in the ASS!! "I thought we were meeting where you live." (Yeah, cuz that's fair for everyone else!) "It's too far." (A little farther than we had to travel, and a much straighter shot.) "It's on the highway." (She hates driving the interstates in the GCDE.) "Let me call Alan and see if he wants to come." (...so he can drive instead.) "You've never eaten there?" (No, we don't usually drive an hour to eat dinner...no. But the website gives you a ton of info; it looks fun.)

Half an hour later, she called back: nope. Too far, and at rush hour. Which is why we picked 7, not 6, to make rush hour less of a deal for her. We could have done 7:30, I suggested. Nope. Still, too far.

Note: multiple decisions revolved completely around her. We could have figured out something MUCH more convenient for the rest of us.

She gives me a pain. She and I are supposed to get together Saturday. We haven't been able to do so for 6 weeks because of our schedules. However, when I call tomorrow, I'm going to tell her that whatever she wants to do, I'll do. SHE can figure it all out and just tell me to be somewhere at some time. Call me when she sorts it out. Then perhaps she'll know how it feels.


SO! Why is the post entitled the way it is? Because the five of us (Del's wife had a dinner thing for her training session) had a great time last night. The place was fun--it's an apple orchard/dinner theatre/family style place....there's a goat ramp outside (need I say more??)--the food was good, if very heavy on starch and carbs and fat, but we had fun. The waitress spent the majority of the meal totally picking on Del--"Why didn't you eat your carrots?" was one of her comments. Mind you, she was younger than anyone at the table. We talked about everything from business contracts to politics in Venezuela (I'm ignorant) to punching bosses (someone did that recently) to grandparents to the evils of Texas.

Incidentally, they stop seating people at 8. So, yeah, we couldn't have pushed the time too much more. And Katherine would have been appalled at the bathroom situation. Really fucking freaked out in every direction; it was pretty dire, even for me!

I love my family.

Most of it.

Today is going to be much more boring, and less fun all the way around.