Witout intention, we seem to have kicked off the holiday season with giant doses of sexism. On Thursday the men were banned from the kitchen (except for Travis, who welded his weapon of cuteness to be allowed in) while the women cooked dinner, and yesterday Char, her sister, and Rachel were up at 3 am to hit the Black Friday sales. This has never interested Char before, but Nika wanted to, and Rachel was inexplicably excited about it.

While they shopped, the rest of us stayed at home and ignored the To-Do list that was left on the kitchen counter. Instead, Alex and Kevin took the dogs to the park while Brad helped me winterize my bike (his help consisted of him standing there with a beer in hand, pointing out to Peter everything I was doing wrong and ho he'd be doing it if he was doing it--but he wouldn't be doing it because he rides even when it's cold.) By the time Char got home, Brad had the grill fired up and was grilling ribs, which kept her from grousing about having her list ignored.

They were gone until almost 4 o'clock yet didn't get much actual Christmas shopping done. I'm not sure I want to ask what they were actually doing, because I'm afraid I would get a lengthy explanation of each of their shopping techniques.

I'd hoped they'd get it all done to spare me from being dragged out later, but no such luck.

This coming week is going to be busy as hell, started off by Kevin and Rachel having another ortho appointment. We haven't told them yet, but we're going to let them hold off until after the holidays to get their braces put on. Kevin doesn't seem to care all that much, but Rachel has been stressed about the idea, and if Alex is right, half the reason is because she doesn't want to have brand new braces and the accompanying headaches right now because of all the holiday choir concerts, and the other half is because of the junior high Christmas dance. She doesn't have a "date" to it, but some squeaky thirteen year old has apparently already asked her for the first dance.

I think I should offer to chaperone that dance.