Thanksgiving, grandparents, turkey...

So my grandparents are these really really cool old people who travel all the time and have all of these weird eccentricities. Like, my grandpa used to be an English teacher and so he corrects everything he reads. I go to their house and I'm trying to read the paper and there are markings everywhere! When he finds something really heinous he'll cut it out and tape it on the wall. There are newspaper clippings everywhere, and most of them are unintelligible because the grammar and/or spelling is so wrong. Also all of their subscriptions go to "Little Cornwall on the Prairie." Instead of their names. He has stationary that refers to him as the governor of Little Cornwall on the Prairie. They live in South Dakota, btw, so we drive the 4 hours every holiday to go see them and the rest of the family. Also he will write down grammatical errors that newscasters make on television and he keeps a little journal, with dates and who it was that made the mistake. They also get an alarming amount of mail from Cornwall...like, in Ireland or something. Bizarre newsletters and such. They always have little trinkets for me and my sisters, too, because they are always traveling. They just got back from Africa, so we now have cow-bone bracelets. I'm wearing mine now. They have a huge world map above their fireplace that has tons and tons of pins in it, marking everywhere they've been. It's really cool.
This year I learned how to play Pinochle, a sacred game in South Dakota that my parents and grandparents stay up late playing every night. I was pretty much indifferent to it, but my dad said that Tyler, as a German kid growing up on a farm in the Midwest, would undoubtedly play it. So I learned. It's kind of a fun game. My family is really manipulative with the Tyler thing. They'll say things like, "Tyler likes girls who can cook a turkey," or, "Tyler probably always helps out with his younger cousins," etc. I don't know if that is true or not, but I'd rather be safe than sorry...
Uh, the turkey was really really good, by the way. I took a brief break from the vegetarian thing so I could enjoy it, and enjoy it I did! And then I enjoyed digestive issues for the rest of the night; apparently switching back to meat after a longish hiatus can wreak a little havoc on the old intestines. Go figure.
My little sister, Emma, continues to delight me, shouting insults and obscenities every time we are in the same room. I'm pretty sure it is a fun game for her. Her favorite is, "You're dumb, 'D' 'U' 'M'!" Also, "I hate you, you're stupid, you're ugly, Tyler hates you, your face looks like a sick penis, your mom is an idiot." My friends all wonder why I talk so loud, especially when I'm drunk, and I'm pretty sure it is because at home every conversation is carried on in at least a shouting level of loudness. It just seems normal. Emma just walked by and said, "You're dumb, D U M D U M D U M D U M D U M..." until she was out of ear range. Funny girl. In the car yesterday (on the way home from grandma's) she had to pee and there weren't any rest stops for a while and so we were all shouting and pressing her stomach and then she licked her hand and smacked me in the face and it was really gross and then we all laughed. And she peed her pants a little. I have another little sister, Madeline. She's quiet and a really big loser who never washes her hair and just spends all of her time with the dog, and reading. Her and I are actually about the same person, our parents can barely tell our little-kid pictures apart and everything she does, I did when I was 11. I'm not even living in the same state anymore, and with Emma as a role model you'd think she'd be more outgoing or something, but she's not. And so she drives me crazy because I know that everything I hate about myself is in her, and all of my insecurities and embarrassing things I used to do, she is now doing. And she never has anything interesting or fun to tell me because I already know everything she knows; she is learning it on an 8 year delay after me. She went to the library and picked out the exact books I read in 6th grade, my name was still on the card! Redwall books, a good series.