Turkey Day

So tired...Thanksgiving went well. I'll relate it to you all in another post. For now, I'm going to bed. Here's a post I wrote on Tuesday but forgot to publish.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!


Thanksgiving is but a few days away! Never in my life have I had such a humongous turkey in my refrigerator. Or really any turkey, for that matter. Brian refers to it as "Birdzilla." I'm more than just a little worried about roasting the thing. Last year I roasted a turkey breast for just the two of us, but that in no way compares to this 20ish pound behemoth that is currently taking up an entire shelf of space in my fridge.

My fear is that I won't cook it right and, come lunchtime, I'll have 20-30 hungry people on my hand just waiting to mock me for my stupidity. Worse things have happened, I suppose.

Like giving those same people a food borne illness. Hmm...I'm sensing a dry, but thoroughly cooked bird in my future.

Honestly, I don't really have that much to say right now. My brain is so preoccupied with Thanksgiving preparations that I fail to notice much else.

I find it somewhat disturbing that Christmas is just around the corner. Even more disturbing to realize that our Christmas tree will be up by the end of the day Friday. Seriously?

Yes, seriously. Every year we put up the tree on the day after Thanksgiving. It's the official start of the Christmas season, in my book. Also the official start of me realizing I have 90% of my shopping to finish. E-gad.

I am super excited about two of my Christmas finds though. I haven't decided who they'll go to yet, so I can't tell you about them. But suffice it to say YOU ARE LUCKY, RECIPIENT. Whoever you may be.

Just yesterday Brian and I went to purchase our annual tree ornament. Normally, we do this much earlier in the month. This year time got away from us so we had to do it quickly. I imagine this weekend we'll go out and find another one with a bit more flair. But, we simply had to have a new one before we put up the tree. It's tradition.

We started buying ornaments our first Christmas together, when we realized that between the two of us we had the equivalent of a Q-tip and tinsel with which to decorate our tree. So, ever since then we've gone out a week or so before we put up the tree and each picked out an ornament to take home. Over the years we have purchased such fine ornaments as: a glass pickle, an anthropomorphic hot pepper wearing a cowboy hat and twirling a lasso, a football-bodied snowman, and this year's crowning glory--a tiny wooden hedgehog.

We promptly named him Jeremy and welcomed him to our family. I'll be sure to place him far away from that hot pepper. If I remember correctly, that pepper also has a gun.

Well my dear blogging world, I'm about to host my first extended family Thanksgiving. I'm not sure if it was a seizure that overtook my body and first suggested the idea to me, or perhaps aliens. We may never know. But, host I shall.

No, I kid. I'm actually looking forward to it. I think you need to come from a big family to understand the appeal of a large crowd. My poor husband is not from a large family and so he tends to pick a spot and sit quietly while contemplating the meaning of life and (I'm positive) how he got himself into this mess in the first place.

He has my sympathies.

I figure I've got upwards of 20-25 people coming for sure, with about 10 people who may or may not show. Thus the conundrum of blended families. Always more than one place to go. But, I'm not going to worry about that right now. I may not worry about that ever. I figure if stretching food is the height of your concern, then you are doing pretty well.

Wait a minute, what am I thinking? When has this family ever had to worry about stretching food? Answer: not in a million years. We are a bulk buying, bulk baking, bulk eating group.

What's that? For Thanksgiving? Oh. Sure. Yeah. Only on Thanksgiving...

Anyhow...Although it is rather stressful to plan a gathering of this magnitude, it's comforting to know that these people sign up to attend these holidays year after year. To know that no matter what, they are going to be around. Probably eating. Probably laughing. Probably asking you the very questions you hoped they wouldn't ask but of course want to know because they are your people and they love you and want to annoy you. Out of love.

It's touching, really.

You know that movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding? At the end, when everything has turned out just oh-so-swell and they are all dancing in a circle and the main character talks about her family? I get it. Almost every single thing in that movie rings true (minus the Greek heritage and weird accents.) As they say in the movie:

My family is big and loud but they're my family. We fight and we laugh and yes,
we roast lamb on a spit in the front yard. And where ever I go, what ever I do
they will always be there.

My family is loud. My family is big. Oh, and trust me, we fight. We do not, however, roast lamb on a spit in the front yard. Although I kinda wish we did. Imagine the stares from the neighbors! Plus, I have seen Dad eyeing the Windex on more than one occasion. Coincidence?...but I digress.

Thanks Nia Vardalos (writer of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.) For putting in to words what generations of crazed family members knew all along.

Sometimes, I think Fridays are the best way to prove God loves us

Whew! This has been a week.

But now it is Friday and I'm just going to go ahead and put it all behind me. Right after I complain about it here.

Can I just say that if you are a doctor and it takes your patient calling in to remind you to read their bloodwork because they know something is wrong, YOU ARE A CRAPPY DOCTOR. Especially if it turns out the patient is right and their medication needs adjusting. And it had already been 2 weeks of waiting for the results. Good thing my insurance doesn't cover anyone else, or you'd be so far down on my list you would never again see the sun. And by sun I mean my bright smiling face.

I guess I'll just check out some medical books from my local library and diagnose myself from now on. Oh wait, I do that already. It's called hypochondria.

What I love best about having a chronic condition is that when my medicine is off, I get to stay up ALL NIGHT and think about it. It's so much fun. Insomnia--it's not just for drug addicts anymore!

And another thing that gets to me--if someone asks you a question, I think the most polite thing to do is to answer them. Don't you agree? I find this applies to all walks of life. Respond to questions, people!

On another note, you should watch I Love You, Man if you haven't already. I feel I need to rectify some bad energy concerning this movie. When it was first released I thought it looked like a pile of dog crap adorned with a shiny gold ribbon (Paul Rudd, you are the shiny gold ribbon.) So, naturally, when people began to ask my opinion on whether or not they should watch it, I hinted that I thought it looked stupid and perhaps a better use of their time would be picking the lint out of their dryer traps.

Oh my, how I was wrong. Sure, the movie is not going to win any awards. It's totally stupid. I recognize this fact. But, if you are a fan of laughter, I recommend giving it a whirl. I've been going around calling people Jobin and telling them I'm "slappin' da bass" for weeks now.

The stares are getting a little annoying.

So, that's why I think you should watch the movie. Let's get this thing goin' on a national level! I'm just gonna go ahead and say you're welcome now. You're welcome.

If you can ignore the stupid intro, here's the trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeZ1YyZZ86Q

Also, and bear with me here because you are seeing this out of context and the beginning of this clip is kinda boring, here's Paul Rudd "slappin' da bass."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUOXXAK55C4

Happy Weekend, my lovelies!

Friday Night Media News

It's Friday evening, I have a frozen pizza in the oven, a fresh bottle of rum and Dr. Pepper (suck on that rum & Coke enthusiasts!), and Netflix has sent us Nothing Like the Holidays starring some people whose names I forget. I belive John Leguizamo is in it. I find his voice somewhat hypnotizing. Kind of like a leprechaun.

This is a recipe for big fun.

I can tell I'm old because this is seriously my idea of a good time. I figure I went out to the bars plenty enough in my wasted youth (pun possibly intended...let me think about it) so that now I can just sit home and enjoy a fine comedy film and feel fine about it. Although, it would be nice to be able to do this with my big city friends. I miss them. (Who am I kidding, really? We'd end up either ignoring the movie, or going out to recall said days of misspent youth.)

In other news, I am currently listening to the soundtrack from the movie New Moon. I know, I know, this potentially makes me a crazed Twilighter. But hear me out--the soundtrack is actually pretty good. Sure, at first the songs make you want to kill yourself with their incessant glumness...song after song after song about being sad and losing love. I GET IT. You're upset. Can we move on? But it features the song stylings of such fine acts as Deathcab for Cutie, The Killers, and Grizzly Bear, just to name a few.

After about the 3rd round of listening I got over the teenage angst and found a couple of tracks that I really enjoy (Not that I'm dissing teenage angst...I did read the Twilight books. All four of them. Twice.)

So I guess what I'm saying is that any of my family reading this can safely purchase the New Moon soundtrack for me for Christmas. Or, you know, precious gems.

Either is acceptable.



:)

November Days

So Halloween came and went. We had fewer trick-or-treaters this year than we did last year, but still a good turnout. We ended up with about 75-80 kids. As always, they were adorable. There was a family dressed up as the Incredibles, which may have been my favorite costume of the night. There were, however, a large (somewhat disturbing) number of tweens and teens who were not dressed up at all. Not a mask or painted face to be seen. I chalked it up to the economy. Why spend $20 on a costume when you could buy, what? 8,000 packs of ramen noodles with that kinda cash?

Next up...Thanksgiving! Stay tuned for what will no doubt be the beginning of the long and harrowing journey known as The Holidays. Drink your coffee!

On a more serious note, my sister's surgery went worse than planned. So, thanks to the assistance of my way too kind and forgiving boss, my work schedule has been cleared and I spent today helping my sister in all the ways that no human being ever really wants to be helped. Suffice it say that one never realizes how important a knee can be until it is gone...or in this case, immobile. I'll be there through Thursday, at which point we are hoping that she'll be able to make it through a day on her own. After spending time with her today, I'm somewhat optimistic that she'll be okay by herself on Friday.

The silver lining in this armpit of a situation is that I will get to spend more time with my sister than I have in about two years. We used to spend inordinate amounts of time together, to the point that our respective spouses wondered what in the world was left to talk about. What can I say? We speak each other's brand of crazy.

Other than that though, totally unfun. But she's my family and she's probably my best friend. And I love her. And I'll gladly help her stand up, and make her lunch, and help her do her painful knee exercises, and look at her stitches and staples all week if it means I can make her laugh through the pain.

I know she'd do the same for me.