Family ties that chafe

This weekend was spent, for the most part, lying around sick, in between bouts of last-minute shopping. I must have picked up a cold bug at the office party or something. I don't like thinking too hard about the transmission of germs (I get off the El and wash my hands with hot soapy water at the first opportunity), but a lot of people at work have colds, so the odds are good that I got the cold from touching the bathroom faucet there -- oh, bitter irony!

I did have bursts of energy, thank god, so I was able to do things like make Boilo and take my first stab at making good chicken stock. I've made stock before, but this time I used Mark Bittman's recipe and followed it pretty closely. It was a success, and I used the chicken parts as cat food (Booby is not a leg man, and I've been wanting to experiment a bit with fresher food for the kitties, as I have been reading lots of articles about how terrible a diet of mostly kibble and canned foods are for them).

Today found me inadvertantly screwing up my sister's life by misspeaking during a phone call to my mother: to keep it simple, my mother viewed the two of us trying to cement plans for Christmas Day as trying to decide who would be stuck with her and my father. As the years pass, my mother becomes more and more histrionic about these matters; she is unwilling to compromise or see reason, and even me speaking directly and frankly ("Please don't play the martyr. We are trying to arrange it so we can both see you!") does little to deflect her. Part of the trouble is that she has some friends whose kids spend every precious golden nugget of time with them and them alone - no distracting, tiresome in-laws to take away from the holiday cheer. We have pointed out that these wunderkids also seem to have no real friends and live literally a short golf cart's ride away on the same plot of land (but a separate house), but it doesn't compute. The son-in-law refers to the husband of this couple as his best friend. It's sweet (er, I guess), but it's also not usual (I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want my dad to be my husband's best friend. Get along well, yes. Best friend, no).

We decorated the tree yesterday as well. The holidays are starting to annoy me. Hopefully later I will have a photo of a 3-legged, 21 lb. orange cat to post.