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Friday, November 30, 2007

Travel Log - Days 4 & 5

Let’s wrap up this trip to Hawaii—I have delayed writing about my last day because in some small way, it feels like I never left there if I never actually blog about leaving there.  But that’s crap, isn’t it, Dear Reader?  Mostly it’s just that I got busy with Thanksgiving coming up, and a bit lazy after that.  But I shall wrap it up for you today.  Next week we’ll get back to Stormy’s Diary, and hopefully some other stuff too.

So: Hawaii, Day 4—Tuesday, Nov. 6th.

Woke early, left Teri sleeping in our hotel room, and met Marla and Tara for coffee on the beach behind the Surfrider Hotel (I think?).  I had considered leaving Teri a note reminding her that we were going to Pearl Harbor this morning and that we’d be back around 10 AM—then I thought, “Nah, Teri remembers we’re going.”  Foreshadowing!

Anyway, Tara and Marla and I headed out to Pearl Harbor by taxi, where we promptly were forced to check our purses and camera bags at $3 a pop, which started the whole event out on a grumpy note for me.  I won’t rehash that here, it will just make me grumpy again.  We attended the short film and then were taken out by boat to the Memorial (where several men refused to remove their hats, and that made me grumpy again).  It was, for all my own irrational grumpiness, very moving.

We bolted back to the hotel, and in the taxi I retrieved a text message Teri had sent me an hour earlier:  “Where is everyone?”  D’oh!  She had forgotten our Pearl Harbor plans, and I started worrying unduly about Teri spending her last morning all on her own.  By the time we got back to the hotel, though, Teri had hooked up with Stephanie for breakfast and soaking up rays on the beach, so all was well.  I still felt awful for not leaving her a note—it’s been so long since I was anyone’s roommate.  By the time we got back to the hotel, there was only about a half hour before Teri and Steph had to head out to the airport to go home.

We all checked out of the hotel—even though we weren’t all going home yet, we were all through with Waikiki.  Tara, Marla and I went for lunch at Ono’s Hawaiian Foods, which was absolutely the best meal I had the whole time I was in Hawaii.  We had the chicken laulau, salt meat watercress, pipikaula and lomi salmon.  Marla had poi, Tara and I eschewed it.  We also feasted on haupia for dessert, and our waiter (who was awesome about recommending everything to us) brought us extra haupia.

Then, off to Oahu’s north shore!  We stopped on the way out at the Dole Pineapple Plantation.  They have the world’s largest maze there, and Marla & Tara wouldn’t let me go in it.  Imagine being mere yards away from the world’s largest maze and not going in!!  I did, however, indulge in chocolate-covered pineapple on a stick, so that made everything okay.

And then we continued out to the beach house Marla had rented for the duration of her trip, in Waialua on the North Shore.  I’m not really sure how to describe it other than to say that it was totally awesome.  Two bedrooms, full kitchen, full laundry facilities, wireless internet and satellite TV, but why would you need any of those things when right in the backyard is the damn Pacific Ocean?  It was about 4 in the afternoon when we got to the house, and we promptly dragged chairs down to the beach and stared out at the water.  Tara hunted for sea turtles.  I drank Hpnotiq, which looks like Windex but packs a pretty good alcoholic wallop.  We drove to town to have dinner, and then afterwards it was Tara’s turn to go home, so we drove back to Honolulu to drop her at the airport.  A little more drinking, a little bit of reading, and then we crashed for the night—Marla in the master bedroom with the big king-sized bed, and me on the fold-out futon in the living room, which afforded me the opportunity to slide open the back door and fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing on the beach.

Day 5, Wednesday Nov. 7th

Woke up and had coffee and sweet taro rolls on the beach, and lamented the few precious hours I had left.  Marla was up just a tad earlier than I was and found a legion of sea turtles crawling around on the beach, and we squealed thinking of how jealous Tara would have been.  We didn’t do much that morning other than look at the ocean and read, so I’ll tell you something I forgot about Day 4:  when we got out to the house, a little orange kitty cat from the neighborhood came running out of the yard to greet us.  A friendlier cat you will never see, he ran right up to me and started purring and rubbing his head against my legs.  Sadly, Tara turned on the hose to wash the sand off her legs, and the kitty freaked out and left—I imagine that previous house renters may have used the hose to chase him off.

And that, sadly, was that.  Marla took me back to the airport, I checked my bag with the skycap, and off I went back to Los Angeles.  A really sour-faced grumpy fellow sat across the aisle from me, and the whole trip he was giving me the stink-eye, and I kept thinking, “Dude, what is up with that grumpus over there, did he just get back from Pearl Harbor or what?”  When our flight landed we both stood to get ready to “deplane” (what a stupid word—you don’t “de-car” when you get to work every morning, do you?), and when we were nose-to-nose like that, I realized it was actor James Woods.  He wasn’t giving me the stink-eye, he was giving me that Hollywood “respect my fucking privacy” look, the same one Jamie Lee Curtis gave me at the Elvis Costello concert.  Take it easy, James.  I wasn’t going to ask you for your autograph anyway.  If anything, I was going to ask what the hell you were doing back there in coach with the rest of us slobs.  Also, he looks way older in person.  Just thought I’d mention that.

And that, Dear Reader, was my trip to Hawaii!  While I loved Waikiki and had a great time there, if I went back I would definitely rather spend more time at the North Shore—it was so peaceful and beautiful.  Remember to check out my pictures at Flickr (where I have inexplicably been given a Pro account all of a sudden).  Marla—let’s go again for your 51st!  Or hell, let’s go for my 40th next year!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Travelog - Day 1

Since Stormy’s Diary is such a hit, I thought I’d regale you all with my own little travelog (or is that spelled travelogue?), now that I am back from the beautiful island of Oahu.  I’ll be sharing some pictures too in the next couple of days.  My Flickr account suddenly “went Pro” (“it just went PRO all of a sudden!”) because it merged with my old Yahoo Photos account, so I have a ton of organization to do over there before I upload any new pictures.  And Flickr is, of course, blocked by the firewall at work.  Anyway, here’s a brief rundown of Day One in Hawaii:

Cast of Characters:  Marla - birthday girl, friend from Bellingham.  Teri, a friend from Bellingham.  Stephanie, Marla’s boss and friend (gee whiz, I can’t even imagine inviting my boss on a vacation).  Tara, Marla’s sister.  Kathy (or is it with a C?), Marla’s friend. 

Day 1:  Saturday, Nov. 3, 2007

Got in last night at 10:30, everyone was already too tired to go party with me so I hit the hay early.  This morning, woke up around 6 AM (still not adjusted to the time zone), showered, dressed, chatted and caught up with bunkmate Teri for a little bit.  We went down to breakfast in the lobby.  Breakfast: coffee, apple Danish, pineapple).

After breakfast we walked over to the Hans Hedeman Surf School, where Marla, Tara and Kathy took a lesson, and Teri and I stayed behind to take pictures.  A little later, Stephanie joined us and also helped take pictures.  Drooled over hot surf instructor.  Got splashed by large wave while standing on a jetty trying to get close-ups.  Camera is behaving worryingly, but still working.

Later, went swimming and was stung by a jellyfish.  Self-medicated with several drinks at Cheeseburger in Paradise, where Teri and I also ate lunch.  Flash on camera is no longer working, and error light is blinking.  Hmm.

Back to the hotel for a shower, then shopping at one of the million ABC Stores in Waikiki for souvenirs, prezzies and postcards.  Then cocktails (Lava Flow) followed by dinner (ribs) at the Hula Grill in the Outrigger Hotel, just a few blocks away.  Still on West Coast time, we retired early.  Tomorrow—Marla’s birthday!  The plan for Sunday:  snorkeling in the morning, lunch at a local noodle shop, a little shopping, wave at the public webcam at 4 PM, drinks and dinner at Duke’s.  Tune in tomorrow for Day 2!

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Hackensaw Boys!

I just have a couple of minutes before I hit the hay, but I wanted to give a quick review of the Hackensaw Boys at the Knitting Factory last night.  Anyone who’s read Bet’s blog or participated in any of the CD Mix exchanges is probably at least tangentially familiar with the Hackensaw Boys—they are a hard-workin’ bluegrass band from Virginia, and they are Bet’s total total favorites.  She goes to see them in concert every other week, it seems.  When she heard they were going to be playing in L.A., she was adamant that I go see them—never mind that I am an old lady who is in bed every night by eleven (well, most nights), never mind that I never go out gallivanting on a weeknight, and never mind they were playing in the heart of Hollywood on a Wednesday night—I was going, and no two ways about it!

Well, of course I was going.  I wanted to go!  Bet’s sent me a good deal of their stuff and I really like them.  I would have been a lot happier if they’d played a Saturday night, but figuring they probably wouldn’t be around the Los Angeles area again for a while, I rounded up Susan and we made plans to go.

The Hackensaw Boys were headlining, but there were two opening bands to sit through.  The opening bands were… well, they were fine, but they weren’t really what I was into.  I liked the second band (50 Cent Haircut) a little better than the first band (during which Susan amused me by sending text messages such as “this band sux” and “kill me now”).

Finally the Hackensaws went on around 10 o’clock or so, and they played until just about midnight.  They played a lot of songs I didn’t know, presumably many from their new album, which I haven’t heard yet.  I did recognize some songs, though, like “Cannonball” and “Gospel Plow” (which rocked!) and “We Are Many” and “Sweet Petunia.”  I was saddened not to hear my favorites, though—“Kiss You Down There” and “Alabama Shamrock.”  They’ve apparently stopped playing “Cumberland Gap” altogether.  Susan and I met up with them before the show and I asked if they might play “Cumberland Gap” and they looked at me like I had just kicked their dog in the teeth.  So I took that as a “no.”

There’s a lot more to tell—like how I broke my beer glass, and how Susan became BFF with Savage Hackensaw’s new bride, and how I found Robert Young’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on the way back to the subway after the show, but those stories will have to remain untold.  I’m still way behind on my sleep and need to get to bed.  It is past my bedtime, after all.  There are pictures here at my Flickr account, so go take a look!

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Aftermath

I have been incommunicado for the last couple of days.  Turns out after spending 24 hours sitting pretty much right here at this desk, I didn’t really want to sit here anymore!  As I’m sure you all know by now, this past weekend was the very successful podcastathon over at the Hucklebug.  I don’t have an exact total, because some figures were coming in during the wee hours and I had lost all ability to do math, but I can tell you it was over $500 that we raised for The American Cancer Society—that’s a pretty good chunk of change.  When I stop to consider that just over one week ago, I was e-mailing Bet saying I thought we should postpone it until we had more time to promote (since we had no pledges yet), I’m amazed that the money piled up so quickly.

I’d like to thank everyone who helped out with the weekend’s festivities, in ways large and small.  Our sponsors, including Michelle, Duke, Mr. M, Lily, Mike, Alisa, Flipsycab Soygoy, Kellie, Taylor, San, Bet’s sister and her cousin too.  I’d also like to thank Soygoy and ThePete and Mike and Lily and Duke and everyone else who left us good topics to discuss so that we didn’t spend the entire 24 hours going, “Umm, what do you want to do?” “I don’t know, what do you want to do?”  And moral support came from commenters, including Marla, Stiglitz, Scotty Dude, ThePete and all of the above-mentioned people as well.

Finally I would also like to thank my Hucklebug-mate Bet for putting up with my snappishness in the wee hours and going through the whole 24 hours together with me.  The Hucklebug will be back with its regularly-scheduled podcast next week, but we are taking one blissful week off, affording me a lot of time to sit around in the evening, not editing.  Might even get in a movie or two.

Tune in tomorrow for the continuation of Stormy’s Diary!

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

The best day, surrounded by lots of good days

I promised more tales of my trip, didn’t I, Dear Reader?  And I swore I had enough material for like weeks of blogging, right?  It’s quickly evaporating from my head.  This is what happens when you get to be My Age.  Which isn’t really all that old, but it’s the oldest I’ve ever been, so look at it from my perspective, why don’t you?

In between all the crazy family visits and pre-arranged family events, I had a couple of days to relax and chill in Seattle with my good pal Krizzer, who has a blog here but who hasn’t updated it in months.  I can assure you all that she is still alive and doing well, and living in a beautiful little house in/near the Ballard district of Seattle with her boyfriend Andy.  The pictures she posted way back when she first moved in there don’t really do it justice.  A bonus about crashing at Krizzer’s:  I got my own room!  I fully expected to be snoring away on the sofa.

And now, let me tell you about the best day of my whole vacation (my family members may get their feelings hurt here, because it was not a day that I spent with family.  No offense, family).  Andy, Krizzer and I slept late (they slept later than I did), then went out to breakfast at a nice little place called Pete’s Eggnest in Fremont (?  Or perhaps it’s in Ballard).  After a nice leisurely breakfast (I had eggs benedict), Andy took off to do his own thing, and Krizzer and I headed up to Tulalip for a little shopping trip.  I needed an outfit to wear to the wedding.

I don’t like to shop.  I don’t know if I’ve ever expressed such a thing in my blog before—not that I am ashamed of it, mind you, I just don’t recall if I’ve ever had occasion to mention it.  So I’m mentioning it now—I hate shopping.  There!  Shopping is a necessary evil, and usually when I go, whether it’s the grocery store or Fry’s or to the mall (and it’s clothes shopping that I hate the most), I have a list of exactly what I need, I know exactly where to go to find it, I get what I need and I get the hell out.

So it always trips me up when I go shopping without a real idea of what I need.  “An outfit for the wedding” isn’t as specific as “two pairs of jeans and three pairs of socks.”  It’s not like there’s a section of the mall where you can buy “outfits appropriate for weddings.”  So this kind of shopping trip involves actually wandering around and looking at things and trying to decide what looks appropriate and what might look good on me.  Krizzer, reportedly, is the same way when she goes shopping—for herself.  When she’s shopping with someone, she’s all, “Oh, try this!  How about this one!  You need these pants!”  Etc.  It’s actually good that she was there, she was a big help with matching things up.

So, after about an hour I’d picked out an outfit that was serviceable (and inexpensive), with Krizzer’s help.  Then, it was time to hit the casino.

When I walked into the casino, I had $172 in cash.  $100 was for my cousin Stevie’s wedding gift—the $72 was for fun.  We hit the slots first, and Krizzer had good luck (as always—she has a real knack for picking out machines with good mojo) and I was not so lucky.  Well, I insisted on sitting at the machine right next to hers, wherever we went—the odds of two machines both paying out at the same time?  Pretty slim.

When we broke for lunch, I still had Stevie’s $100, plus around $25.  The rest had been sacrificed to the slot gods.  We had an economic lunch, then Krizzer brightly suggested we give the roulette table a try.  What the hell.  We found a suitable table and I traded in my $20 for chips.

We were there at the table for about three hours—maybe more.  When I walked away from the table, I had $100 in chips.  A good day at roulette!  We were a very sociable table, making friends right away with a woman named Theresa who joined us and started betting big right away.  Then Laura joined us, even though I kept calling her “Nora.”  Men came and went from our table, but never won much and usually drifted away again quickly, so we dubbed it the Girls Table.  The exception was Mike, a kindly old gent in a nylon Adidas warm-up suit, who bet the minimum two bucks on the outside every game—either red or black, depending on whatever method he was using to bet.  And when he hit it and won back his two bucks, we’d whoop and holler as loudly as we did whenever one of us won big.  Mike enjoyed us.

Roulette is an impossible game.  The odds are the worst of any gaming table in a casino.  I did really well, though.  I have two or three spots that I play consistently (always a side bet between 0 and 00—that paid off several times—and always a corner bet between 31, 32, 35 and 36), and then occasionally I just feel numbers.  I usually lose several dollars “feeling” numbers, but when they do hit, I’m always happy I stuck with them.

Anyway, the fun didn’t stop there.  Krizzer ended up losing at roulette, but she’d won quite a bit at slots, so we both walked out of the casino about $30 richer than we walked in, and had a lot of good entertainment into the bargain.  Then we went back to her house, and we spent the next hour or so playing guitar—Krizzer, Andy and me.  And I was pleased that I was able to keep up with them a bit.  We finally turned in around 1 AM—the end of a very good day.

Thanks, Krizzer & Andy, for your hospitality, and for giving me the best day of my trip!

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

The Traveler Returns

Call off the dogs, I have returned home from my extended, multi-stop, multi-family-obligation vacation.  Did you miss me, Dear Reader?  I missed you.  I have a lot to tell you about my trip and the various stops I made and the various people I saw and the various things I did—too much, in fact, for one blog entry.  So I’m going to spread it out a little bit over the next week or so.  Also, we need to get back to Stormy’s Diary—I’m sure you’re jonesing to know what comes next there.

The last stop on my trip was near Leavenworth, in Central Washington, for my cousin Steve’s wedding.  Pictures, for anyone who is interested, can be found here on my Flickr page.  The wedding took place at Cornerstone Lodge, and several of us stayed there as well.  The place is gorgeous.  There’s one thing we do really well in our family, and that’s weddings.  The marriages may not last, but the weddings are always a blast.  I think Stevie’s topped all of them.  The ceremony itself was only about two minutes long (and we all sat there sipping our beers while it was going on), and once the formalities were over we were able to move on to the real main event—the after party.  Or parties, I should say.

Right after the ceremony there was a catered, sit-down meal of chicken, salmon, roasted potatoes, salads, etc.  There were toasts and photos, and the bride and groom cut the home-made chocolate cakes (which were AWESOME), and then we all changed into grubby clothes and moved over to the REAL party—down the street, in a horse field, where a bluegrass band played (Spare Rib and The Bluegrass Sauce), and there were kegs of beer and barbecued burgers and dogs, and dancin’, and drinkin’, and apparently some other mind-altering substances as well, and general mayhem until well past the middle of the night.

In between the two parties, we had a little family emergency.  My brother, his wife, and their three sons (da-na-na-naaaah!  Na-na-na-naaaaah!  Sorry.  My Three Sons theme.  What?) were in attendance, of course.  Near the end of the catered meal, in fact during the cake portion, it suddenly became clear that Gunnar’s face was swelling up (Gunnar, middle son, three years old).  When asked what happened, he said that Jack (older brother, five years old) hit him.  Jack confirmed that he did, indeed, hit his brother.  But, there was also some speculation that Gunnar had gotten into the Chex Mix, which has peanuts in it, and Gunnar has a wicked peanut allergy.  So, to be on the safe side, my brother and sister-in-law bundled him into the car and whooshed off to the nearest hospital, in Leavenworth, some 12 miles away.

A little later, I asked Jack, “Did you really hit Gunnar in the face?”  Jack nodded.  “Why did you do that?” I asked.  Jack explained, quietly and a little shyly, but quite rationally, “He said that Bionicles isn’t a good show, and it is a good show, so I hit him.”  I explained that I think The Thin Man is a great movie, and if anyone told me it wasn’t, I might be tempted to belt them in the mouth too.

People drifted off to the after party one by one, but I stayed at the Lodge with my sister Stacey and my Dad, looking after Jack and Martin (youngest of the boys, and also my godson).  Rob and Tami had left in such a hurry that we didn’t have diapers or food for Martin, or carseats to take the boys over to the party, or any of their toys.  Jack contented himself watching Cartoon Network (verboten at his house, but they are on vacation), and Dad and I wore ourselves out trying to get Martin to take a little nap.

“I think he wants to nurse,” Dad said.
“Well, he’s out of luck on that one,” I said.

Dad eventually hit on the quite brilliant idea of feeding him milk—off a spoon!  Worked like a charm, and helped tide Martin over until Rob and Tami came back, with Gunnar.  He hadn’t gotten into the peanuts after all.  He just had a fat lip from where his brother smacked him one.  False alarm! 

We all headed over to the after party and got there before dark—plenty of time to flat-foot it up to the bluegrass band.  Gunnar and Jack ran in circles around the front of the stage while the band played, and when the band stopped between songs to banter, the boys stood quietly and respectfully and listened.  When the music started up again, they’d go tearing off in circles again.

A wedding, a meal, a violent incident, a hospital visit, some dancing, some drinking—do we know how to party, or what?

Monday, June 25, 2007

Hasty Dispatch from the Road

Ahhhhh, rest and relaxation at last.

I’ve been pretty much surrounded by family members since I arrived here Wednesday morning.  I’m in New Jersey, Dear Reader, in case you weren’t aware—out for the nephew’s high school graduation.  Tomorrow I leave for Seattle to spend a couple of relaxing days there with my old pal Krizzer, and then it’s off to Leavenworth, WA (yes, yes—get all your Marx Brothers jokes out of your system now) for my cousin’s wedding.  More family!  I love seeing everyone again, but we are a loud group, to say the least, and it’s nice to finally have a little peace and quiet.

My mom just went to work, dropping off my aunt and cousin at the bus stop (they’re headed into NYC for the day).  Kyle (the graduate) is asleep.  Justin (younger nephew) is awake, but happily squirreled away in his room watching cartoons and going through his Digimon cards (yeah, I couldn’t believe that kids still dug Digimon either, but apparently they do).

I have about one hour before my sister comes home.  And what am I doing with that time?  I’m blogging.  That’s right, Dear Reader.  Because it’s all about you.

I will have a bit more free time to catch you all up on my trip on Wednesday.  Until then, some photos of the graduation and my crazy family can be found over at my Flickr page.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Dad’s visit - a recap

All I can say is thank God we had the TV all weekend, so I could watch countless repeats of Brittney Spears shaving her head on the local news over and over and over again.  That’s one thing I really dislike about Dad’s visits—although it’s a good reminder why I don’t count on television for the news.

So, an update on my weekend of shopping.  I did make out like a bandit on this trip—Dad bought me a new handbag and wallet at Macy’s.  He’d bought me my old black purse at Bloomindale’s about eight years ago, and for the few months I’d been thinking how it was really time I got a new one—I didn’t like the way it slung over my shoulder anymore, it was always sliding off of me and stuff was always falling out of the pockets.  And my wallet!  That wallet was probably about 20 years old, the leather was peeling off of it.  So, new wallet, new purse.  It’s taking me a little time to work out where everything “lives” in my purse—we’ve had several delays while I’ve tried to figure out where my keys are.

We also went back to Ikea and got a table top and four legs (Dad didn’t buy that, though), so now I finally have a dining room table.  I probably won’t use it that much (I prefer to have dinner in front of the TV), but it’s nice to have for special occasions, and the dining room looks complete now at last.

When Mom comes to visit, I cook and she does the dishes—or sometimes she cooks and I do the dishes.  When Dad comes to visit, I cook and do the dishes, and clean up after him.  But, when we go out (which is often) Dad always pays, so I guess it all balances out.  Also when Dad comes to visit, the volume on the TV is always ear-splitting, because he can’t hear anything.

My dad’s getting old.  He turned 70 last year.  Previous to his 70th birthday, Dad looked and acted like he was around 55, tops.  Ever since hitting the 70 mark, he’s developed a limp, his hearing has gone down the crapper, he forgets things like his glasses (he ALWAYS forgets his glasses, everywhere we go), and talks about my inheritance.  I think it’s psychological more than anything else—until he hit 70 he always “thought young,” but these days he’s thinking old.  I’m hoping it’s a phase.

Dad hits the road tomorrow morning for Arizona to play a little golf with a friend of his there, then starts the long trek back to Oregon on Thursday.  It was a fun trip—we always have a good time when he comes.  I’ll see him again in June—first for my nephew’s graduation, and then for my cousin’s wedding.

Gah—back to work tomorrow.  Luckily it’s a short week.  Daily Trivia will be back tomorrow!

Thursday, February 15, 2007

White man’s bourbon

So, as I mentioned yesterday, Dad’s coming to town tomorrow.  The preparations when Dad comes to town are very similar to the preparations when Mom comes to town, with one exception.  For Dad, I need to make sure the freezer has plenty of ice, and I like to lay in a supply of his favorite bourbon—pictured above.  Origine.  It’s actually a sort of high-end “house brand” only available at Albertson’s, so Dad can’t get it where he lives.  Not because he doesn’t have an Albertson’s, but because his Albertson’s is in Oregon, so it doesn’t sell spirits—just beer and wine.

So as you can see from the above picture, I’m all set for Dad’s visit.  Except the cleaning up, but as long as the bourbon’s here, it’ll be okay.

Plans for the upcoming weekend:  shopping.  Lots and lots of shopping.  Dad loves him some shopping.  Furniture shopping, to be exact.  For the last three or four years, we’ve visited the same furniture stores in West Hollywood, looked at the exact same dining tables and chairs, and he’s never bought anything.  Except one time he bought a $200 toaster.  He loves to shop, but he hates to buy.

The other thing Dad loves to do when he visits is watch the news on TV, which sadly he will not be able to do this time around.  I picked up some rabbit ears today for the TV to see if I could pull in a few local channels, and no joy.  REALLY, no joy.  No Office tonight, either.  Lots of season 1 Scrubs on DVD, though.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope everyone is having a good Thanksgiving out there!  We’re watching football on Dad’s new plasma HD TV (college football—Miami vs. Boston College), Dad and Aunt Carol are reminiscing about hearing that World War II ended (and Dad, who claimed this morning that he broke his toe, is now claiming that he could dance on it).  Cousins Danny and Michelle are putting away the dishes from dinner.  Cousin Chrissy is reading the newspaper, and seven-year-old Donovan (cousin once removed—Danny and Michelle’s son) is quietly watching cartoons in the other room. 

And I?  I, Dear Reader, am finishing up one last vodka cranberry, and blogging.  And wishing you all a happy Thanksgiving.  If you’re bored, for some reason, you can always check out this week’s episode of The Hucklebug (special Lost Episode!), which is available now for podcasting, streaming and/or downloading.