Thanksgiving and wishful thinking

I rather enjoy social networking sites - of any sort really. For some it's a blog community (sorta like this), for others it's Facebook or MySpace, and for other's it's a message board of some sort. All of these things are nifty ways for folks to keep in touch and I really enjoy reading up on everyone's lives and news. This brings me to my current state of reading up on everyone's Thanksgiving holiday. Several friends of mine went out of town, while others stayed home and people came to them. Most had home cooked food, but I'd venture I know at least someone who went out for their turkey dinner. The recurring theme in most everyone's depiction of their holiday was FUN. Fun with friends, fun with family, fun with the dog and cat - whatever, it was all just fun. This applies to mostly everyone who wrote a blog, posted pictures, or made a comment of any sort regarding turkey day. This; however, does not apply to me.
For many years now we've been going out to Winchester to have Thanksgiving dinner with our friends and former babysitters, the Purvis family. These folks are straight sent from heaven. When we were absurdly young, clueless, and in need of quality child care, the Purvis family (yes, all 4 of them) came to the rescue. Kelly, the daughter, worked at the daycare Josh went to and when we asked around for someone who might be available one evening to babysit she was all in. We really liked her and her family (she was 19 at the time) and so we called her again and again to help us out. When we discovered we would need someone who would pick-up our kid and watch him till later in the evening, Debbie, the mom, stepped in to help. These folks helped us raise Josh and were just like family to us for the whole 3 years we lived in Winchester. Even after we moved away, we continued to go out to visit them for Thanksgiving (among other times during the year). THIS was always nice and enjoyable, never awkward or uncomfortable, and something anyone would want to do again.
This year my mom wanted to come for Thanksgiving with her new husband, who we've met all of once. Not to completely poo-poo the guy - he seems nice enough, but we just don't know him at all. Compound this with the fact that my mom doesn't even know him. This time last year she was screaming at us all about how everyone on the Internet is a "liar - all liars", and how dating sites are just formulas for disaster. Fast forward 6 months and she'd run off and married the first guy she met on an Internet dating site - pretty much site unseen. She dragged him around to her friends and family (Katie and I excluded) and then decided that was ample opportunity for everyone to "approve", so she took the leap like a complete child. I'll stop this rant here and continue on with my Thanksgiving story.
So she calls and says she wants to come and I said that was fine if she wanted to, but it wasn't necessary (cause we're very happy just going to Winchester). I've spent the bulk of my life going out for Thanksgiving, so she suggested we do that - her treat. I looked up a few places and decided on Clyde's in Ashburn, and that was that. There was some momentary moaning and groaning on the part of everyone here in my house because it's just not fun. It's not fun to deal with people in your house that you don't know. It's not fun to deal with my mom who is just a strange bird to begin with, but then coupled with her draped over this guy we don't know is extremely awkward. It's difficult to describe the level of discomfort that exists when they're here. At least when it was just my mom I could deal with just her. Generally she's nice to your face, it's over the phone that she's so unbearable. I did my best to make conversation about whatever I thought I might have in common with the new guy, but as it turns out there isn't really anything. He mentioned that he wanted to go visit places now that he's retired, so I thought that would be a fun topic. It wasn't. The only places he wants to go are places he's already been to, and all of said places are in this country. The funniest part of the entire conversation was when he suggested my mom get on an unpressurized, unheated military plane to Hawaii. She was clearly shocked by this suggestion, and my comment to her was "Travelocity.com." I was beginning to think he might be relatively tolerable until the day they left and he started to tell a "joke" which wasn't a joke at all. Brad, in quick thinking, stopped him, and later told me what he was going to say (which he'd apparently told Brad the night before). I honestly wish he would've said it in front of me so I could've thrown him out good and proper. I have no patience for stupidity, racism, redneckism, or anything that could be construed as a threat to our national security. Makes me wanna take him up 123 and drop him at Langley next time they're in town.