impulsive family members

I had a short snippet last night in which I was sitting around with my mom and some relatives. One of the relatives was my aunt, and they were discussing her daughter, my cousin Cheryl, who's always been pretty. Someone was talking about how she was bullied as a child by kids calling her ugly (not at all true as far as I know). My mother chimed in, saying, "yes, she was ugly!" I was mortified, and my aunt seemed very taken aback (you could almost hear the stunt music with the downward chromatic scale). I was trying desperately to find something to say that would make my mom's comment seem less offensive, but she carried on breezily as if nothing was amiss: "of course she's pretty now, but she sure was ugly then!"

Then I dreamed that my husband had learned to fly a helicopter. We rented one and took it for a ride, which was quite fun until he started doing stunts and flips as if it were a plane and not a helicopter (oh, and it was dark and rainy). Then he made a deal with the rental company to buy one (I wasn't consulted about this purchase; he came out of their rooftop kiosk with keys and we suddenly had our own helicopter). He was inordinately concerned with finding out the "correct" way to christen a helicopter, as if his future flying safety and pleasure depended on doing it in the prescribed way. I was just still a little queasy after the barrel rolls, and dazed and shocked by the big-ticket purchase.