tell the devil i said hey when you get back to where you're from

Tomorrow is going to be a disaster because I didn't go to bed two hours ago as planned; instead, I sat around and did some financial planning with an eye toward the new year (said financial planning becoming more important to actually follow given that I no longer have an income, since apparently dreams do not equal paychecks -- who knew?). But since I'm currently constitutionally incapable of going to bed at 10:30, perhaps that's not a surprise. However, I have to get up at 6:30 so that we can be out the door by 7:30 to meet up with my mom's sister and her kids deep in the heart of Missouri. Since we're going to Missouri, I could probably get away with wearing sweats, but since the only sweats I have here say either Stanford or Google on them, they wouldn't exactly blend in.

Today was great, though -- I am thrilled to say that finally, after many years of struggle, I won a game of Rail Baron today. It was a v. close, dramatic finish, but I did it, and lo, a great burden of past failure was lifted from my shoulders. The fact that we were playing a six-person game completely changed matters, since gameplay is vastly different with that many people -- Uncle Mark, Aunt Kathy, and Drewbaby came down for the day specifically to play Rail Baron, which was duly accomplished in six or seven hours. They brought chili for lunch and sandwich meat for supper, and an excellent time was had by all. It was Drew's first introduction to Rail Baron, and he did quite well; the Wampler force runs deep within him, even if he's trying to escape it by becoming a star athlete rather than a history dork or political aficionado or any other type of borderline-obsessive hobbyist. It was good to see them in a more laid-back situation than the time we spent celebrating Christmas + Gram's birthday, and I'm glad they came down -- Drewbaby's my only cousin on that side of the family, and I consider it a minor miracle that my brother, Drew and I get along, even if our relationship is primarily fueled by insulting our elders.

After they left, I watched some fine CBS programming with my mother -- a heartbreaking episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, a par for the course creepy episode of Criminal Minds, and an episode of The Defenders (which I'm v. happy to have discovered on this trip -- I'll have to tivo it when I get home). And now, I really must go to bed -- time and Missouri wait for no man. Goodnight!