Christmas this year was marked by slutty shoes, squid, my dog and a bunch of hoes.  And this is tame by my family’s standards. Between still recovering from a hellacious battle with food poisoning, my grandmother being sick, my brother being late, and mother being sick and late and sobbing, Christmas Eve was rather subdued.  It was kinda like going into a mental asylum right after the patients’ doping drugs had kicked in.

My aunt, BFF, and Kira, however, were bouncing off the fucking walls and provided the majority of material for this sequel to A Very Katsidhe Christmas.  Like that post, this one looks long, but it’s all conversation so it goes quickly.

I’d already shared the first trauma of the evening in Sixty Squid A-Screaming because finding a box full of undressed squid was enough to warrant a post of its own, so I’ll just jump right ahead to where BFF arrived and helped me clean the squid.

***

The sudden sound of kissy noises made through my mail slot and Kira’s subsequent furious barking heralding the arrival of BFF.

“The squid were whole!” I immediately screamed as he walked in the door. “I’m talking eyes, tentacles, sand!”

The poor boy barely had time to get his coat off before I was yanking him into the kitchen, which pissed Kira off because I was robbing her of her requisite greeting rubs.

My grandmother, aunt and cousin, M., arrived about half an hour later.

“The squid were whole!” I again screamed by way of a greeting, and then filled them in on the gory details.

“You did good cleaning up the puke stain from your carpet, Kat,” my aunt remarked eyeing the location where stomach had erupted onto it. “I cleaned it as best I could and then just dumped Mop N’ Glow on the area so it wouldn’t smell.”

“I know, that was a good idea.  I felt horrible that you had cleaned up as much as you did though,” I told her.

“It was really thick, too,” my aunt continued because this is my life. “I just closed my eyes and held my breath.”

“Uh…huh, yeah I think it’s time to open the wine now,” I told BFF.

After a glass of wine and giving the savages the first course–Crab and Asparagus Soup–everything was pretty calm.  Except for Kira.

When Kira was a puppy, she barked at my aunt and my smartass aunt barked back at her.  Kira has never forgiven her for this and as such she barks and growls whenever my aunt moves an inch.  Since I was in the kitchen, and Kira knew I was too busy to execute any threats, my shouts of “Kira hush!” were completely ignored and she continued to growl and glare daggers at my aunt until my mother showed up and distracted her.

“The squid were whole!” I screamed at my mother when she walked in the door.

I had just finished frying said squid and put them on the table along with the spaghetti and marinara sauce.  My aunt got her spaghetti at which point Kira suddenly forgot her grudge and wanted to be besties with her.  Basically, Kira wanted my aunt’s spaghetti.

Kira knows a number of tricks including sit, shake, high-five, and down, but one of her most impressive tricks is her ability to speak.  If you ask Kira to speak, she doesn’t bark but will yodel in a way that sounds like “hello” or “hearf” which I take to mean “here” as in “put some food hearf”.  Lately though Kira has been making a new sound that sounds suspiciously like “hoe”.

My cousin was well aware of this so as Kira pawed at my aunt and wagged her tail my cousin her, “Kira, what is your aunt?”*

“Hoe,” Kira responded.

(Yes, my dog has incredible timing which you know if you’ve read this entry.)

The thing is though, that Kira gets so much attention–and usually food–for saying this that once she starts she will keep saying “hoe” all night. Thanks to my cousin’s laughing, Kira continued to smack my aunt with her paw and call her a hoe.

I ignored the debacle and told BFF that the next dish was almost ready.

“I’m not eating anything called a snot-knocker!” my grandmother suddenly announced.

“What?  What the hell is a snot-knocker?” I asked her.

“You just said that the snot-knockers were almost ready to come out of the oven.”

“The croissants!  I said that the croissants are almost ready to come out of the oven!”

“Hoe,” said Kira as she nudged at my aunt.

My aunt ignored Kira and instead asked my mother how she could stand wearing the hooker-heeled shoes she had worn that night. (See where I get my love of slutty boots?)

“Because she’s a real woman,” BFF answered for my mother.

“Haha! And what am I?” my aunt demanded.

“Hoe,” Kira reminded her.

(My dog is a fucking genius, I swear.)

My brother finally arrived, but at that point I was getting tired and cranky, so instead of greeting him with a scream about the squid, I snapped at him that it was nice of him to finally show up.

“You’re lucky I came at all!  You still owe me restitution!” he told me.

“Restitution for what?” my mother asked.

“Last week we saw that girl that Kat was going to introduce me to, and the girl told us that she had just had a three-way with her new boyfriend!  If Kat hadn’t waited to hook me up with her that could have been me, but noooo she had to wait.”

“That’s sick!” my mother gasped.

“Hoe,” Kira agreed.

(I say again, a fucking genius.)

“Kat owes me restitution!” my brother pointed an accusing finger at me, and I was about to say something really snarky when my mother interrupted.

“Gator, is that the kind of girl that you really want?  To do that sort of thing!  And she’s not even married!”

At which point we all nearly choked from laughing so hard.

“You’re right, Mom, you should definitely wait until you’re married to have a threesome!” I howled through my laughter.

“That’s not what I meant!” my mother yelled turning red.

I returned to the kitchen to finish the last dish when BFF turned and told me, “You know, Kat if you were a real woman you would be wearing heels while you were in here cooking, too.”

“Yeah, well, we know I’m not one of those,” I told him as I grabbed a piece of Cod with my bare hand, gobbled it down whole, and finished cooking.

***

I’ve been asked by readers how I remember exactly what people have said when I’m regaling ya’all with conversations I’ve had with, say, my family for example.

I can answer this questions by citing a quote from “Psychology  and Aging”:

Posttraumatic stress disorder is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event that results in psychological trauma.”

So there you have it.

*We were actually able to video this but it features family members who don’t want to be publisized so I’m going to try and edit it and then post it.