It's the Most... Somethingest Time of the Year

Yes, that time when family and extended family gather together in the mountains of Virginia to... to... stay inside and play cards a lot. And supposedly enjoy each others' company. A time when relatives gather together, and mourn the fact that the sing-a-long hayride (see archives, August 2002) will likely be cancelled due to the fact that it's raining this evening.

We're in a different house this year, which has good and bad points.

Good: I get an actual bed, for the second time in 12 straight years of reunioning.

Bad: This puts all 22 people into a much smaller living space, bedrooms aside.

Good: The entire 10-and-under crowd, who all wake up around 7:30 in the morning, pretty much stays downstairs, and away from the upstairs bedrooms, where I fully intend to sleep until after noon, now that I have an actual bed.

Bad: I'm trying to remember a fairly pop-ish lyric from a song, something to the effect of "staring at the space on the wall where the tv used to be." But I can't remember artist, title, song, or exact words, and Google's not helping. At any rate, that's what it feels like, sitting in the living room, because my idiot parents moved the TV into one of the bedrooms before anyone else arrived. Why they think they have the right to dictate how the other twenty of us spend our vacation is beyond me. Considering how bored I've been over the past 24 hours, I'm rightfully fuming. But quietly.

Anyhow, I'd better wrap this up before my family comes back in to collect me after perusing the "Celtic Festival" here at the Mountain Inn. (See also: the 4th of July crafts fair, the wine festival, the New Year's arts festival, and every other event that brings "local craftsmen" up here to the mountain.) Tonight's activities: possible replacement of the hayride with the Hell CDs (Dan's evil doing, not mine), the "Family Swap," and maybe Balderdash.