A Holiday Reprieve

Hallelujah!
My brother called me late last night to ask if I'd consider rescheduling our family Christmas visit that was slated for today.
He said there'd be too many out of towners, in-laws, outlaws, cousins, teenagers and other layabouts still hanging around, and the commotion would disrupt what we'd hoped would be a small visit with him, his wife, my mom and maybe a nephew or two.
Mom's a little hard of hearing, and in a crowded room she gets overwhelmed by overlapping conversations, then she starts to get conversationally competitive and starts talking about historical events she participated in that are simply not true.
Once she said while she was at a lavish charity ball, Lyndon B. Johnson called her his little prairie flower and danced with her all evening while Lady Bird sat on the sidelines, giving Mama the hen eye.
Another time she said when the Pope was in town, riding down the street in his Popemobile, he looked her up and down, smiled and winked.
So, you can see why my brother wanted to skip the crowded gathering.
I tried to disguise my glee at not having to fight the holiday traffic on I-35, which is clogged with bumper to bumper, death wish having, gun toting, NASCAR wannabes, even on ordinary weekdays. Plus, today is the busiest shopping day of the year, and on the way to Austin on I-35 is an outlet mall roughly the size of New Hampshire. The traffic around there today will be backed up for 40 miles, I bet. I-35 is so bad, one afternoon as I was driving north, this guy passed me in a red Toyota convertible, doing about 110 mph while he was talking on his cell phone. When he slowed to about 85 to avoid hitting the clump of cars ahead of him, I caught up to see what he looked like.
It was Governor Rick Perry, that scofflaw bastard.
A few weeks ago, while he was filing to put Dubya's name on the ballot for the Texas GOP primary, Perry had his driver park in a handicap parking space. A reporter spotted it and blasted it all over the news.
Perry's limo wasn't ticketed (of course), but he had to give $500 of his own dough to some charity to get the heat off him.
He's not quite as dumb as Dubya, but he makes up for it with arrogance that makes J.R. Ewing look like Gandhi.
I know outside of Texas nobody's heard of him, because he hasn't actually done anything as governor. He's never on the news in Texas, either, except for that recent handicap parking story.
When he was running for Governor, he showed up at a black tie Human Rights Campaign Foundation Dinner (that's a big organization for rich queers, for you heteros).
A very attractive lesbian physician, wearing a couture evening gown, walked up to him as he slouched against the wall, and asked why she should vote for him.
He looked right at her cleavage, skipped a few beats, then sneered, "Cuz I'm here."
She said, "That's it?" That's your answer?'
He just turned and walked away.

Anyway, after yesterday's Goth-crashes-Jesus-Christ's-birthday party, I'm relieved not to have to attend another holiday function before I have time to fully savor my Christmas memories, over a mug of steaming hot clam juice.