In which Merenwen battles a library self-checkout, her family, and high-sodium food.

For some weird reason, Blogger just posted as I was typing the title the first time. Odd.

So I went to the library to pick up my stuff, and I was having a hard time with the self-checkout machine. It was recognizing a manga as two items, which I don't understand, and then I selected 'finish' by accident, so I had to dig my card out again. I was having the same problem with other items.

And when I got home, my mom started bitching at me because I was supposed to bring two bags for the library stuff we were picking up (she said something about two bags, but she must've been mumbling or something). And then when I told her about my troubles with the self-checkout, she nattered at me to check my slip to make sure it didn't list it as two copies of each item. I told her it didn't matter, and she went into an 'it does matter!' speech. OMG. Seriously?! Duplicate items are the least of my problems! I got an e-mail at 10:49 last night from Stephen telling me that youth group would be cancelled until AUGUST 12TH, because he's in BATON ROUGE!!!

And now, more ranting about family, and a rant about high-sodium food. Because I can.

We went out for Chinese food on Monday with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Brent, Justin, Uncle Brent's girlfriend Heather and her daughter Tegan, Aunt Patti (I flashed her a snide smile when she thanked me for passing her a menu, but I don't think she saw it), Jesse (Patti's son and my cousin), PATTI'S FRIEND LORRAINE (why she was invited, I still don't know) and Grandma's cousin Donna.

And now the rant. WHY THE HELL WAS LORRAINE THERE?! SHE'S NOT FAMILY, AND UNLESS SHE MARRIES A SECOND-COUSIN OR SOMETHING SHE WILL NEVER BE FAMILY! I KNOW SHE DOESN'T HAVE A FAMILY OF HER OWN OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, BUT THIS ISN'T A HOLIDAY DINNER, IT'S A FAMILY, A FAMILY GET-TOGETHER!!!!!

M'kay. That's done. Oh yeah, there was also the part where Grandpa was being his usual cheap self with the bill and the tip, Patti bitching about there being no shrimp left in the one noodle dish (I got it before her, and had to wait forever for it to come my way, so I figured I was entitled to the last shrimp!) and me having to wait a little while for dishes to be passed to me - I know it wasn't intentional, but a lot of people could see my plate and, thus, see what I had and what I didn't have on it. Oh, and on the car ride home, Dad said something about everybody having to pay for Patti's soup. Must be nice for her. I wanted to get won ton soup, but Grandpa was kind of rushing us, and I should have spoken up, but I didn't want to look ungrateful by saying that I'd like soup, too. But dammit, I should have asked for soup. Patti got soup, and almost everybody else got a spring roll or an egg roll. I hate spring rolls and egg rolls!

The food was pretty good, though. Not as good as stuff you can get at Mandarin, but still decent. But it was so packed with sodium that Mom and I felt like roadkill.

We might be going to Michaels this week. I hope we do, because we have a coupon, and I want to look at circular needles. And they have Vanna's Choice on sale.