instant gratification

We are not people accustomed to delayed gratification, in this family. Christmas has not bothered to wait; we opened the last of our presents yesterday, since we were tired of dropping clues like boulders across the paths of the recipients and likewise trying hard not to bump into them on our way out.

This is the problem with coming to visit too early. In between the introduction and the denouement, there's an entire period of suspense-building and development that we just can't be bothered with. It's all very good for storytelling, but we're not detail people. Broad sketched strokes and outlines, that's what we want. Shibui - the beauty in the empty spaces. That's what we like.

The Guy trotted out to Fry's right after we arrived in Seattle and bought Sako a black Mac laptop, which we subsequently hid under the bed until we had a chance to wrap it. We gave it to her a couple of days ago, and she has been plastered to it ever since. This will be affectionately known in the future as "The Christmas of '07," wherein Yuhri and the Guy scored big with the Christmas presents. It will pose an insurmountable bar of excellence that no other family member will ever be able to transcend. This is how it should be. We told her it was her graduation present for finally finishing her four-year degree (in 12? 13 years?). Her department had actually shut down the program several years before she'd bothered to start considering matriculation.

We told her it was also a Christmas and birthday present for the next few years, an arrangement with which she is perfectly satisfied. "I have too much stuff," she said, only to tack on a half-second later, "No. Except for this computer. This computer is mine."

She gave the Guy a shower head. The last Christmas present she gave him was a rubber ducky toilet seat. She continues in this obscure obsession with bathroom accessories.

My mother, who is never quite sure what to get my husband for the holidays, decided to give him a sweater. Barring the fact that we live in Silicon Valley, which rarely gets below 55 degrees during the worst of the season, it was a very nice gift. Certainly the thought was to be commended.

In fact, if she hadn't somehow managed to get him a woman's sweater, it would have been a real win.

Sako, Mom and I, were seated on the couch while the Guy tried it on. It only took one look to identify the gender-affiliation of the sweater -- for three of us, anyway. The three of us that did not include my mother, that is.

"Mom," said Sako. "That's a girl's sweater."

"Um," said the Guy, and looked down at himself.

"Girl's," I said.

"What?" said Mom, and looked puzzled. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," said the Guy.

"Yes," said Sako.

"Yes," said I.

"How can you tell?" asked Mom.

Well. All you really needed to do was look at it on him. "The shape," the Guy said diplomatically. "It's cut to accommodate certain things--"

"It's a girl's sweater," Sako said, and that was that. He took it off.

Later on in the car, with just Sako and the Guy and I, the subject of the sweater came up again. "Haha," said Sako. "You got a girl's sweater."

"She's taking it back," I said.

"Girly," Sako said. "It's because you have that hair."

The hair is a sore subject with the Guy. He's defensive about it. It reaches down to his ass and seriously needs to be cut. Every time I bring the subject up, he acts like I'm volunteering his right testicle for medical experiments.

"My hair isn't girly," he said.

"It really is," I said.

"It is," Sako said agreeably. "You have girly hair."

"No."

"He thinks it's manly," I told my sister, and patted my husband on the shoulder. "It's very manly hair."

"Thank you."

"Except the way where it's not."

"So manly, Mom got you a girl's sweater," Sako said.

He puts up with a great deal from my family.