UPS is off tomorrow, which means no work for Ninja, nothing to distract him from the anger and pain. I'm so relieved he's still sleeping. He woke up for a bit, briefly, when we stopped by the house to feed all the animals, but he left the cuddling to BB, which is fine. She needs the furry snuggles right now. We bid all our animals (save for Mowgli, who has been at our sister's house with Mom while we were at work) a safe, calm night and a Happy New Year before locking up the house and driving over here. When we came in, mostly everyone was sitting in the living room, watching some movie. I greeted Gabriel and Kokoro, then headed for Aneli's room. Mowgli wasn't there, but Mom followed me there and we held each other for a while. Eventually I went over to Angel's room to see my baby fuzz-ball and cuddled with him for a while. I was exhausted by then, emotionally drained and nearly fell asleep there on our nephew's bed with our kitten, but BB pushed us to get up, and I complied. "I know, I know," I said drearily, nudging the others to help me move our body. "We can't be assholes, not tonight. Get up and play nice with everyone, yadda, yadda." Sal took over then to act the sheepish apologist, and BB held Mowgli to our chest, like a shield.

The rest of the evening wasn't too bad. The Dud and her family decided to go visit her inlaws, leaving us and 'Ama alone in her empty house with her two cats and my little Mowgli. Although I know it made Mom sad to see even the kiddos decide to go with those people over her and us, we were, quite frankly, relieved for it. Sal cooked us up some sausage-salsa-cheese dip, and mom made herself some quesadillas. As the time grew closer to midnight, I poured fizzy passion fruit/apple juice cocktail into our special wine glasses (courtesy of Dollar Tree) while Mom counted out our twelve grapes for both us and herself. We rang in the New Year alone, but content in each other's company, and Jack did The Clink^TM with her and a wiggle dance to go with it. We agreed that it was better that way, and that things weren't so bad because we always had each other, and about half an hour into the new year, the Dud and her family came back. Frankly, I preferred when we were alone with our mother. Rosa Isela went on about how she's not really comfortable going over to her inlaws' place, but I dismissed it in my mind. Hard to feel sorry for her when she's the one who chose to spend the New Year's countdown celebration with them over her own mother. When she's the one who also chose to volunteer for work tomorrow because she "can't deal with her kids right now," but is clearly upset about them opening up and talking to us. When she doesn't even believe I'm a real person. Yeah, she can shove it.

Still, I'm not looking for a confrontation. Sal has been pleading for us to let this be; move on from it, and ignore her. That's what we've been doing, for the most part, but it isn't getting us anywhere. Ninja's itching to fight back, but anyway, I digress.