...sorting through tons and tons of boxes of crap that had accumulated over the last 24 years and decided what to little we wanted to rescue from the big garage sale my mom had planned.
Sunday was Christmas Day for the Battjers! It was kind of quiet this year because my brother was out in Ohio with his girlfriend's family so it was just me and...
On Tuesday night I took the train out to NJ to hang out with my parents and spend some time with my Aunt Barb (my mom's sister) and my Uncle Tom (my dad's college roommate!) who were in town visiting from New Mexico. On Wednesday we piled into the car and took a trip to...
After I bid Grant farewell (and after I'd finished admiring his undies) I hopped a train out to New Jersey to my parent's house to wish my dad a happy 58th (Holy crap!) birthday!
On Tuesday morning I took the train out to my parent's house in Jersey to meet the truck that was delivering all my worldly possessions from San Francisco.
The plan: Continue subletting my apartment in NYC, store all my stuff at my parent's house in NJ, spend the next 12 months traveling to different places around the world and crash at Meredith's apartment (You're the best!) when back in NYC in-between trips.
After we were done opening presents, we had a contest to see who could turn the Christmas tree on from the greatest distance (the tree's hooked up to a clapper, remember?). Here's me celebrating my win all the way from across the room. My dad said my ability to clap the loudest probalby had something to do with my "callused palms." Whatever that means. hahaha.
After the party, we came back to my house and snuck up to my old high school bedroom to write cards and wrap gifts (and no, my room didn't look like that in high school. I had waaaay more Iron Maiden posters up. Somewhere in the twelve years since I moved out, my mom redecorated my room and turned it into Wussland. Maiden still rules, though. Seriously).
Back at my parent's house, Meredith was marveling at our tree. (Ok, more likely she was marveling at the fact that my parents have their tree plugged into a Clapper.)
The next mornign we had breakfast with the fam (cinnamon rolls...mmmm) and Grant headed back into town. Meredith decided to stick around a little longer and we...
I got up to help him out and was told that he didn't need any help "figuring out his own camera, Goddamnit!" So I took some photos of everyone waiting. Hahah.
Before anyone can eat, it's a family tradition that my dad needs to take a group photo of the table. There's nothing better than watching him try to figure out the auto-timer on his camera. Every year, he'll think he's activated it and he'll start running around through the kitchen so he can make it back to his seat before a pic's taken - but there are always like three false alarms and he gets progressively angrier as he has to go back and try to get it to work (which makes us all laugh more, which in turn makes him even angrier).
...that's right. The one thing my mom forgot to mention was that all of the ski clothes that they had were purchased at the height of the eighties' fluorescent colors craze. Check us out! (You may need to dim your monitor's brightness setting in order to do so).
Now, neither Fatty or I had been skiing in several years and so we didn't have any ski gear. We were going to buy all new ski coats and gloves, but when I mentioned our upcoming trip to my mom she said "We have a whole trunk of ski gear - why don't you boys come out and visit and you can just borrow from us?" With Fatty recently having left his job as well, borrowing as opposed to buying made much more sense. So on Wednesday night, we took Fatty's car and drove out to my parents house in New Jersey. After we were done marveling at the veritable cornucopia that is my parent's well-stocked suburban fridge, it was time to get down to business. My mom took Fatty and I over to their trunk of ski clothes, but when she opened it, there was a horrifying blinding flash of light that seared our eyes and forced us to our knees...
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