giblets

For as long as I can remember, Thanksgiving has been my least favorite holiday. When we'd go to my grandparents house, the thought of my grandmother's wet, giblet filled, yellow food coloring altered stuffing literally made me gag. The thought of my dad sopping up that stuffing juice with a tiny piece of roll still makes me sick.

Claire and I would carefully arrange English peas, some carrots, a spoonful of some sort of casserole with no discernable parts, and as many rolls as was socially acceptable on our plates.We'd pray no one asked us why we didn't eat more. When Thanksgiving dinner was finally over, Claire and I would pile in the car and make gagging noises as soon as we were out of the sight of my grandparents. Dad would hysterically laugh and mom would roll her eyes at the total grossness of dinner but also at our total dramatics. We'd beg Dad to pull over at ANY open fast food establishment. We'd cram happy meals in our faces and fall asleep in a heap in the backseat.

In the last few years or so, my mom and dad have had Thanksgiving at our house the grossness factor decreased significantly. But, I still don't really like Thanksgiving food. It's just not that good.

This year I'm not going home for Thanksgiving. I always had visions of grandeur for my first grown-up Thanksgiving without my family. I was going to do it right-in my own house, with my own apron, my own menu of homeade lasagna, garlic bread, asparagus, and chocolate pudding.

But the closer my first grown up Thanksgiving gets, the less I want lasagna, and the more I want yellow giblet stuffing to gag over.

So, this year, I'll make turkey (and probably fail), stuffing, and 4 kinds of potatoes, and a casserole that has no discernable parts. Heck, I might even use yellow food coloring just to keep the tradition alive. It just seems right.

700 mph

Anniversaries aren't really my thing. And although a thousand things will always be on my mind on October 14 and 15 of every year for the rest of my life, none of those things can be expressed in words or on a stupid blog. Those things are too deep, too complicated, and too unreal to fully comprehend.

What I can understand is that as we all fly around the universe on this hunk of dirt at 700+ mph tragedy engulfs us. It is all around us, everyday. And amidst that tragedy you will find the very worst and the very best part of human existence-that life goes on regardless of your tragedy.

So while my heart is heavy and my mind is screaming at me to do something to fix this hurt, I absolutely can not. My life goes on with this hurt intact.

LCF

9/12/46-10/15/08

Hambone

“If you saw two guys named Hambone and Flippy, which one would you think liked dolphins most? I'd say Flippy, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong though. It's Hambone.”

the office.

I never wanted to be one of those people who lived for the weekend. One of those people that just tolerated the other days of the week, slogged through hours of unimportant, unchallenging work to be able to pay for the weekends they cherish.

Now that I am one of those people, I'm just like everyone else. Just like everyone sitting on Mopac with a Bluetooth in their ear, a large espresso in their hand, and with a secret hope to turn in their letter of resignation and move to the Caribbean.

It is oddly comforting to know that I am just like everyone else. That almost no one is happy with their job all the time. Comforting to know that it is unrealistic to love your job everyday.

What isn't unrealistic is the hope to like your job at least most of the time. It is not unrealistic to want better than the status quo and to surround yourself with those that want the same, everyday.

That is why career change is hard- because it would be easy to be like everyone else around you. It would be easy to coast through 43 years until retirement, bitching in the break room under your breath, squeezing your real life into 48 hours a week, like everyone else.

Big risks yield big rewards. Here we go.

romper fun!

After spending 15 minutes in line at Whole Foods behind ACL hipster doofi buying liters of Electrolyte Infused Water, I drove past the shuttle boarding station for Austin City Limits.

Those standing in line to board these shuttles were from all walks of life. Not really, they were all white with some sort of disposable income. In this line, I counted 8 romper clad women.

What is a romper, pray tell? A romper is a old trend made new again. A romper is a one piece jumper like contraption to be worn my females. 2 years ago no one would have been caught DEAD in a romper. I spent my early elementary school years trying to avoid rompers and jumpers. And now, in order to be cool I need one.

Everything old is new again.

have you any wool?

Sometimes I wonder how much more advanced our civilization would be if humans didn't have to eat or sleep. But, usually I stop wondering about that pretty quickly because I'm either hungry or sleepy.

This weekend we tried a new burger place. The Black Sheep Lodge. I read some good reviews but was fully prepared to be disappointed. I usually am.

Then, the stars aligned, pigs flew, and hell froze over. I was not disappointed!! I had the garlicky sliders, or "Little Stinkers". I hate that name. But--the tiny burgers were super good. Strong roasted garlic flavor, but not enough to scare away vampires, fresh baby greens, mustard, and perfectly cooked, flavorful patties. PLUS, I got them with overly salty tater tots. Anywhere that serves tater tots is right with me. Needless to say, I'm pretty pumped about The Black Sheep Lodge. Finally, I am not able to criticize. At least not about the food.

Post Black Sheep Lodge we went to the best sno-cone stand in town. I got a Medium Tiger's Blood with cream. Which was excellent. Cream? On a sno-cone? That's right folks, this IS heaven.

Then I feel asleep on the couch and woke up 3 hours later with a bad-for-you-food hangover headache.

So, yes. If we didn't have to eat or sleep we might all be in tiny flying pods and have a cure for cancer and heart disease (or would we not have either b/c we don't eat?) But we also wouldn't have the satisfaction of falling asleep on the couch on a sunny Saturday, baseball in the background, stomach full, knowing that an alarm clock would not wake us up.

commence blogging

20 years and 4 score (or whatever) ago there were no blogs, Tweets, or status updates. I think I liked it better that way. Which, may seem terribly ironic since I'm writing and you're reading a BLOG. I'll explain.

I'm planning to go back to school. And, since in the past two years I have only written text like "Thanks for your generous support" and/or "Hope you'll consider increasing your financial commitment to our community's health", I feel pretty out of clever and academic writing practice. I'm using this blog to get my skills back.

Feel free to criticize at will. Also, feel free to ask me to research and report on topics you'd like to hear about. But don't do too much of either or I'll erase you.

Cheers