News of the Weird (i.e. my family)

On Thanksgiving, my dad hosted his side of the family to the tune of 50-something (for the most part large and loud, though very sincere and hospitable) people roaming all around his fairly conservatively-sized home. The day after Thanksgiving found us all at my maternal grandmother's, including the new boyfriend and fiance of my grandmother and mother, respectively. Verrrry interesting stuff.

The highlights, in bullet form:

• I am so damn lucky that my parents' divorce is so amicable. They are truly friendly. They can talk and laugh together, they help each other out with major projects (i.e. painting mom's new house), they invite each other to parties involving their kids. It could have been so much worse.
• Female cousin G. has gotten herself mixed up with meth, and so her husband J. moved out and tried to get custody of the kids. The courts refused, even though he is stable and loving and has a great job. He's going to appeal. Meanwhile, Mom is constantly high and everyone knows this, but for some reason the lawyers can't prove it in court.
• Male cousin M., who's 33, had a much-younger (19) girlfriend, and they had a baby and moved in together. Now they have broken up, and she has a new boyfriend, who also moved in to their house. M. is afraid that if he moves out, Barely Legal will take the baby and run (though not too far, because she has crippling agoraphobia). So they have an arrangement whereby all four of them (cousin, ex-girlfriend, new boyfriend, and baby) live together. One big happy family?
• In other odd news... I met my stepsister-to-be and her two kids. My step-nephews-to-be, I suppose. I like her and her boys very much. I am not so hot on her boyfriend, but who knows how long he will be in the picture. (Agonizing sidenote: doesn't marriage ever last forever anymore?)
• Mom's fiance is 63 and just got a pacemaker. That seems really old to me, although when you are 53 I think it's perfectly respectable to marry a 63-year-old. It's just... I guess it's just a little more weirdness piled on top of the initial weirdness of getting a stepfather in the first place.
• I feel like my mom just moved into this new house, and now she and her husband-to-be have bought another one, just a block away. It is starting to sink in that every single time I come to visit from now on, I will be visiting him too. Which isn't bad, necessarily, as he seems OK enough... it's just weird.
• I am enjoying the heck out of myself here. Seriously. I wake up happy, I have the old spring back in my step. It makes me doubt all over again my decision to not give up and quit my job and come home. (But I do keep coming back to the same decision in the end.) In a queer twist of fate, however, I appear to be allergic to the very air over here. My allergies are acting up with spasmic insistence. Why can't I just have it all, hmm? :-)
• Tomorrow morning, the family portion of our program ends and we move on the the "visiting cherished friends" schtick. Very much looking forward to that as well.