Who do I still think I am??

This one's about the annoying annoyance.

30DBC PROMPT: "Tell me about an annoying relative or aggravating family reunion."

What's up y'all? It's damn cold outside and almost frighteningly warm in my room right now, which I'll gladly take for the time being in order to make up for the few moments I had to spend in the great outdoors, where the temperature barely scraped the lower single digits all day. It doesn't look like there's much reprieve coming anytime soon from what has to be one of the coldest northeast winters in recent memory. But enough about me...let's discuss this prompt, ok? Thanks for understanding .

This has to be one of the few times where I knew within ten seconds of seeing the daily prompt email what (or in this case, who) I was gonna write about. The only real question was "How?" I did a quick search of "Who Do I Think I Am??" , using the keywords "Grandma Rosie", and to my surprise not one, but two entries came up. There was "This one's about 5 de, the pickle, and my space." , which was only mildly entertaining...for my money though, the better form of tribute source of explaining my feelings toward this woman are contained within this group of words available for your perusal, "This one's about over but the shoutin'." . For those challenged by links that direct you away from the day's primary means of life-baiting, allow me to summarize the latter post by using bullet points (and just to be clear, I'm reciting these from memory as best I can and with a weird sense of fondness...no sympathy is required, please).

I don't like throwing the word "crazy" around, but good ol' Italian grandmother Rosie has been batshit insane since about as far back as I can remember, and even longer based on the recollections of other family members.

While babysitting myself, one of my younger brothers, and one of my sisters, she made us spaghetti for lunch. She gave my brother twice as much as the rest of us, because "he's a bigger kid and he can eat all that". Only, he could not, and the attempt was not pretty.

We helped her move into a new apartment (because Rosie moved around a lot ). She owned a rather large (from what I can recall, at least) armoire or dresser, of which the back of each drawer was labelled "Chester Drawers" rather than "chest of drawers" (because I'm pretty sure at first that was what we all thought she was saying, until hearing "Chester Drawers" for around the thirty-eighth time or so).

She set a toaster on fire trying to make Pop-Tarts.

One of her apartments had little notes up all over the place, reminding potential thieves that she had nothing of value and that the police would find them eventually, I presume after stealing the canned goods in her pantry.

Rosie didn't mind at all using homophobic slurs, whether it was directed at me in my early teens for a haircut she didn't approve of, or in reference to my youngest brother, who was definitely less than ten. And with that information, I shouldn't even have to bring up racially-tinged remarks.

There was no remorse when she knocked my youngest sister down a flight of cement basement stairs; only scolding her that she "get up and quit fooling around".

I brought a girlfriend over for dinner one night. Rosie's first words weren't "Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you..." to the poor girl. Instead, she asked me (out loud, in front of everyone that evening), "What ethnicity is she?"

I wish I were making this stuff up...looking back it's kind of shocking we were allowed to be anywhere near her. Oh, certainly we dreaded her, but I'll never see what the value this woman had in our lives other than being the relative we feared and mocked the most when she wanted us to give her a kiss...her lips puckered and instantly grew taut to one side of her face. Remember that gymnast in the Olympics a few summers ago that made the face of annoyance and it became memes of everything "not impressive"?

Yeah, her. Now add about 60 years, makeup applied as if it were Krylon (http://www.krylon.com/), and Ronald McDonald-like orangey-red hair that could only have grown into a rounder shape had it sprouted out of a Chia Pet. Come give that a kiss, and then take this note down to Davey's Mart and get her a pack of unfiltered Pall Malls (and you better bring back that change, 'cuz Gramma knows how much they charge).

BCF PROMPT: "What do you think of horror movies?"

See the above portion of today's entry. Just kidding.

When you've written as many blog entries as I have (and I'm sure some of you have written plenty more), you're bound to feel like you've covered lots of topics plenty of times over. Today is no exception. I've been asked about movies before, and I'm reiterating my stance on them by sharing this link: "This one's about twists." .

Granted, that doesn't completely fulfill the prompt's query, because what I wrote there doesn't cover the specifics.

Horror movies are just as stupid as non-horror movies. There. I said it.

Even movies that are supposed to be about real events often include many incorrect pieces of information and/or dialogue. And since < true pretty much = false (ok, well, not always, but this isn't a friggin' morality class), and false = waste of time + stupid (in my little world), movies = stupid via my implied sense of logic. In addition, so-called "scary" movies, when applying this formula, aren't true, so you shouldn't be scared by something that's fake because that's just stupid. See where this is headed?

Trying to impress scare me with gore and evil bad guys made up of body parts humans don't have and using false propaganda in an effort to leave me visibly shaken is an absolute waste of my time and yours. What, you think I'm gonna walk out of a theater and drop dead (no pun intended) into a zombie/vampire/mummy/act of <your deity here> apocalypse that threatens Earth while simultaneously finding all the weapons I'll need in a blown-up 7-11 (Oh! Thank heaven!) and having the rogue lady cop-turned-vigilante fall in love with me as she shoots up the last manbeast just before it feasts upon me because the alien spacecraft accidently ran over my foot? Naw man, I got better things to do.

How I regard movies is like how pretty much everyone who doesn't like sports feels when there's some kind of game or match of any importance level going on, and they absolutely feel like they need to tell you every.single.time just how much they really don't care. These same people will also remind you on.a.weekly.basis when it's time to join them in tuning into the latest episode of "The Real Stars Of The Real Industry That Has To Remind You How Real It Really Is" because "omigosh it's so.dot.real."

I'm going to end this part where I type my opinion on something where I probably should've started it: with a plea that you not judge me. Chances are, we're all borderline stupid over something, and don't realize how shamelessly we express that at times. It's ok.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

I don't know whatever happened to this band, but I'm fairly certain that it may have had something to do first with them trying to be emo and then covering a Michael Jackson song (RIP, King Of Pop).

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

I've mentioned before how I hate distractions when I'm sitting down trying to come up with an entry, but today I've managed type up to this point not only with Facebook open, but checking my notifications just once. And the only reason I kept it open was so that I wouldn't forget to share this article (http://blog.mainstreethost.com/the-9-best-things-about-buffalo-ny-from-a-newcome...), which came from a Facebook page called (seriously, because Buffalo is incredible like that) "Smelling Cheerios while driving over the Skyway" (https://www.facebook.com/smellingcheerios...because General Mills has a plant in Buffalo that makes Cheerios, and, well, you can figure the rest out).

And also, this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/emofly/buffalo-dishes-better-than-hot-wings?bffbfood.

Speaking of distractions, I noticed a few days ago the "real time" email, newsfeed and other WDC notifications that get pushed through, and it's killing my already dreadfully low attention span seeing that "(1)" or whatever number there is up at the top of a tab while I'm bangin' out your next favorite blog post, but I snuck a peek at my email and saw this: "Merit Badges and Achievements" ...how fun is that if you're a WDC nerd?

And sure, it'd be easy to blame today's entry on the paint fumes I huffed accidently at work this morning, but the garage bay at the highway department is too large to be of any consequence in that regard.

I don't really have much more to add today...I'm thinking I may have, well, never mind. I'll just hit "Save Entry" on this and go through my little routine of posting up in the forums and on social networking, and deal with the fallout if necessary. Sometimes reminding myself that there's a special place in Hell for people like me can be the best way to get through a cold, crappy day that drags on yet seemingly goes nowhere. Peace, my city smells like Cheerios, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!