Another Game Night

My family likes game nights. Well...not my immediate family, my extended family. My immediate family is fine with sitting down to play a game of cards or Monopoly, and we don't need to make a huge deal out of it.

Game Night wouldn't be such a big deal (to me, anyway) if we didn't play games like Cranium or Trivial Pursuit at 10:00 at night, when we're all fighting to stay awake. It's like everyone on that side of the family doesn't ever sleep. They're awake in the middle of the day, and then they're awake at freaking midnight, and THEY NEVER SEEM TIRED! It's ridiculous.

Unfortunately, they also seem to believe that everyone else is the same.

Every time we have Game Night, we don't start playing until 8 or 9 at night. Now, Tinkerbelle gets bitchy when she gets tired, and games are not an acception to that rule (although, lately she's been bitchier than normal, so being tired seems to have nothing to do with it anymore). The main problem is that we seem to have to work around everyone's work schedules -- everyone's work schedules except ours, of course.

Last year, Thanksgiving was postponed because my cousin had to work.

Everyone wanted Tinkerbelle to try and get off early from work the last Game Night we had so that we could work around their schedule.

My cousin had us hold off on Christmas presents because he had to work (really, what kind of shitty job has you working on Christmas?).

Tinkerbelle had to get up early the next morning for work, and they were here until almost midnight.

See what I mean?

It's like the entire family revolves around my know-it-all cousin. Now, keep in mind that my cousin is nearly 40, has never had a girlfriend, works at Comcast answering phones for a living (seriously, what a shitty job), has some kind of computer degree he does nothing with, is working toward getting another degree he'll probably do nothing with, and may as well still live with his parents since he's always around them anyway. He lives in his grandfather's house (his mother's father), and visits his parents every single day. He vacations with them, every time they go on vacation. He goes curtain shopping with his mother. He goes grocery shopping with his mother. He shares every single opinion he has with his mother. Seriously, there's something wrong with that relationship. I mean, I completely and totally understand loving your mother with all your heart, but if you can't even stay home when she goes on vacation halfway across the world, you have a serious problem. It would be different (maybe) if her husband were dead, but he's not.

And I'm sick of the family revolving around this Mamma's Boy.

Luckily, tonight we played a game we could all enjoy. It wasn't too difficult, but still kept us on our toes, and it was entertaining while being something everyone could do (instead of acting, sculpting, or drawing).

Now, my entire family? We're visual learners. We need to physically see how something is done in order to understand it. Which basically means that, when we're playing a new game, we all need to see, read, and understand the rules in order to have a good time.

Unfortunately, my cousin is like, the Rule Nazi, and doesn't share the rules.

Tinkerbelle actually had to stand up and steal the rules from behind his back just to understand what the hell she was doing in the game. He never noticed, but I'm sure he would have uttered an annoyed sigh and audible eye-roll had he seen. He's like a man with the remote to the t.v. except...with a piece of paper that comes inside the game box.

To top it off, my aunt seemed really pissed off tonight, for no reason I could really understand.

Oh, and my aunt's brother and sister-in-law (my aunt married into the family and isn't related to us by blood) have a SEVERELY autistic little girl, who likes to scream for no reason and tear glasses off of your face. Granted, I know she can't really help that sort of thing, but...damn. I really, REALLY hope I don't have an autistic child, because I would not be able to handle it. And this is coming from someone who's mother once told her that she thought she was autistic as a baby (and I still may have Asperger's, though I've never been diagnosed). Luckily for us, the nurse they have working for them offered to stay until the game was over. That kept the little girl occupied the whole night, which was nice. Yes, they have a nurse working in their house taking care of thier child. That's how severe she is.

Anyways, it's been an eventful evening, my cousin's birthday. Oh, yes, it was that same annoying cousin's birthday today. I've lost track of how old he is but...I think he was born when my mom was 8 or so...I don't feel like doing math, bleh.

He's good for something, though! He's taking me to Les Miserables in September.

Legally Blonde the Musical

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to see Legally Blonde the Musical. Well, I did. We just got back a few hours ago. It really was a blast, and I'd actually love to go see it again. I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive at first. I mean, Legally Blonde isn't the kind of thing you would expect to see on the Broadway stage. I loved the movie, though, so I was willing to give it a chance.

Plus, it's a Broadway show, so...duh! Of course I'm going to go see it!

The show started out with a song called Ohmigodyouguys. Which has to be one of the most annoying songs ever in any Broadway show I've ever seen or heard. Luckily for me, the rest of the songs were actually pretty good, and the story very closely followed the movie (with a few script changes here and there to accomodate the stage). Unfortunately for me, it seemed to be the show's freaking theme song, and they liked to stick it in there whenever they got the chance. The song Ireland was fairly amusing, and since it had an Irish sound to it, I liked it. And of course, there was a song titled Legally Blonde, which surprisingly didn't even show up until act two.

The highlight was Bend and Snap though. Yes, they made an entire song and dance out of the one scene in the movie. And yes, it does in fact end with Paulette breaking the UPS guy's nose (he's named Kyle in the show, but I can't remember if he had that name in the movie). She ends the song with a lovely little "Oh, crap!" It's funny.

It seemed like a lot of the cast had a cold though. Emmette in particular (played by a very cute actor named Nic Rouleau) missed a lot of his notes. And it's not like it wasn't noticable; he was very clearly falling just flat of hitting his notes. Most of the cast seemed to be like this, but it was Emmette who was the most noticable.

And may I just mention one thing?

The men in this production? HOT!

H-O-T, hot. Smoking, really. It was fun to watch, just for that alone.

There's a scene in the very beginning of the play, when Elle is trying to study for the LSATs to get into Harvard, where all these frat boys appear on stage to announce that there's this big party. They're all very cute...and very, very shirtless.

Again, HOT.

All in all, I had a nice night! I just wish Tinkerbelle had enjoyed it more. Apparently she had a headache. She just didn't seem that into it. Which is a shame, since she was the one who invited me. *shrug* Oh, well. She did laugh a few times, so I suppose it wasn't a total loss.

Colds Suck

The title pretty much says it all.

I caught a cold from Mickey and Tinkerbelle, who both had it for about two weeks. Yay. I can't breathe through my nose, I'm sleeping like crap, I'm dizzy and cold, and I'm achy. On top of all of this, I need to work this week, babysitting. Fortunately for me, my little charge seems to understand someone being sick. Unfortunately for me, she also can't seem to entertain herself for long and therefore keeps asking me to do stuff with her.

I hope this cold at least suppresses itself by Thursday. Tinkerbelle and I are going to go see Legally Blonde on Thursday, and if I'm all gross and sniffly, I won't be able to enjoy it. Well...not as much as I normally would, anyway. Let's face it, it doesn't matter how bad I'm feeling, seeing a live Broadway show will always entertain me in some way.

By the way, colds suck.

Legally Blonde!

Not the movie, although it was a great movie. The musical. It's coming to Colorado Springs next week.

Yes, there's a Legally Blonde musical.

Tinkerbelle found out about it and asked me if I wanted to go see it with her, which surprised the hell out of me, I have to say. We bought our tickets last Friday, and the tickets arrived today. We're going to see it next Thursday, and I'm really excited. There's nothing better than a live Broadway show. Nothing in the world. I love it.

So far I've seen The Lion King, Wicked, Les Miserables, and Spamalot live. And I loved them all. Time to add Legally Blonde to that list. I'm so excited!!