Friday Waster: a very special holiday waster

Between the holidays and the crazy blizzard, I was slacking a bit this past week. I caught flak from those of you who can't entertain yourselves. You can consider this waster either really late from last week, but I'm calling it the very early and extra special holiday edition. Just remember, though, calling it special doesn't necessarily make it good.

A month or so back I shared the news that Joe was engaged. The fam likes his fiancée, and they're really happy together, so there's not much stress there. The fact that they've only been dating since the summer was a bit of a shock, but they're planning a 2yr engagement so that pacifies the "rushing into things" concerns. They're even starting to look into buying a home.

Last week I started bugging him for his semester grades. If you remember, he's on the reimbursement plan, where I pay 100% for his classes after he shows me results. He avoids the questions, doesn't respond to email or text, and I start getting the idea that I'm not going to have a very large check to write.

I actually don't have ANY check to write. Genius dropped out back at midterms then hid the fact until finally confessing a couple days ago.

Good news? I learned a year ago not to front him any money. He didn't put a single one of my dollars in the trashcan.

What stresses me? Not the fact that he dropped out of school. If he's not ready to grow up yet, that's cool with me. I'm a bit jealous, actually. I don't want to grow up either. I want to be able to drop out of school when things get too hard. I don't want to pay a mortgage. I want to sleep late.

What stresses me is the mismatch and conflicts between his actions. "We're getting married." "We're trying to buy a house." "I'm going to keep working at the ice cream shop." "I dropped out of school." It's gonna make my brain explode.

So for now, he's crashing at his gf's parent's house, bc she doesn't have a place to live either. He's still scooping at Ben & Jerry's. The shop owner is trying hard to help Joe forget that education BS and become an IceCreamManager instead. They just lost their previous manager, so the owner is in full recruitment mode to fill the slot.

I learned all this information at the end of last week, right before our main Christmas plans. It made the weekend a little tense, but there was enough distraction to keep the subject buried.

Yes, Christmas. Since we've got multiple split-families to coordinate, Missy and I scheduled our Christmas with the kids this past Saturday. We had all sorts of stuff on deck to fill the day, too: DC all day, doing the tourism thing at Union Station, the Botanical Gardens, and the National Christmas Tree. The day was going to end with a dinner cruise on the Odyssey, viewing the lights & sights up and down the Potomac.

Mother Nature had her own plans. The blizzard shut down the entire region and canceled everything on our schedule. Instead, Missy and I were snowed in with 4 kids, 1 fiancée, Missy's mom. Plus lots & lots of dogs: Missy (2) + fiancée (1) + mother-in-law (3) = two hundred and thirteen effing dogs in the house.

Even though the original plans were jammed, the holiday was rescued. We filled the time with lots of playing in the snow, caroling over at Grandma's house, running around the neighborhood, sledding at the Gorge, opening our gifts, and burning the fireplace all weekend long. Instead of a cruise in the city, Missy whipped up a big fondue dinner, punctuated by chocolate fondue for dessert.

Next topic... my schooling. Strayer, consistently boneheaded, came up with a semester schedule that ended during the week between Christmas and NewYears. They tweaked the semester to end a week early. That left the professors with two weeks' worth of lessons to complete in one week. Last week, I burned at least 18 hours on schoolwork and final exams. I'm done til January now, but wow was I crying for a few days. Sometimes I wish I got credit for writing the Waster.

Final thought before I check out this week: Go visit 15minute lunch. I like them. They like me. I won a weird and useless prize for my limited drinking skillz. For reals.

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Dom found a simple but addictive basketball shooter. Competition between others online, you can even form private leagues to play in the office!

Shopping Cart Hero!

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Quite possibly somebody has a legitimate explanation for that freaky, no-offensive-line fake kick that the Redskins tried to run last week. It actually makes sense to me now. A little.