Thanksgiving

Hooray for a sense of accomplishment. Yesterday, officially, our kitchen (and I say our because i live with my grandma, which I enjoy very much) was finally finished!! It is gorgeous, completely transforms the house, and I picked out the wall color. In reality I have no particular reason to feel any sort of accomplishment for the completion of the kitchen. I did do some of the work, nothing excersises angry demons like taking a sledge hammer to your old counters, while they're still attached to the wall. But what the heck, I helped so I'm going to feel proud that its finished. This great news means that we will be able to have Thanksgiving dinner at our house, as has become a custom over the last couple of years. Thanksgiving is always a lot of fun and you should use this time of year to learn things about your famiy. For example:
We play card cames. For hours and with a voracity that one might normally associate with pro sports. We also play cards when there is alcohol involved. "first blood!" is a phrase commonly heard around the card table, this means that someone has been injured in the process of playing whatever card game we happen to be playing, this usually occurs during spoons.
Some people refuse to be cheerful. There are just some members of my family that refuse to be cheerful no matter what we do to them/with them.
If you give someone and extendable fork, they will use it to stab you from across the table. My stepdad who is renowned for his ability to eat off of everyone elses plate was given an extendable fork for Christmas several years ago to make this process easier for him. Now it has become a game to give the fork to random people at the table and see who gets stabbed with the amazing long fork first.
These extra special glimpses into what Thanksgiving dinner is like at my house should hopefully spark some imaginative efforts on your part to observe and record all of your love one's exentricities and share them with the world. Its just more fun if we can all laugh at each other together!

Revelation

I have come to a revelation. I thrive on stress. Although this particular tidbit of information probably doesn't come as a shock to some people, lest of all me, the realization of it does explain a few things about the way I live, and now apparently work. The high stress, deadline oriented environment in which I now find myself is turning out to be ideal working conditions. The constant threat of failure is a fabulous motivator, and is helping me turn out some of my best work ever. Although the gnawing, stomach churning feeling that I have forgotten something really important has taken some getting used to, I actually quite like the rest of it. Althought occassionally my inner history geek feels compelled to make an apperance at work (for those that don't know I work at the corporate office of a sporting good meca, making this apperances supremely random and causing my co-workers to stare at me blankely). The most recent example of this was the frantic rush and worry that accompanies black friday. Now when I first heard the term "black friday" being whispered around the office like some great god, or reverant diety, my immediate thought was..."why are they so concerened about the day the stock market crashed?" There is salvation for me though, as I happen to work with a fellow geek. Who saved me from terrible embarassment by voicing this concern to the other peole I work with, by informing me that this in fact refers to the day after Thanksgiving, the first day of the holiday shopping season. Who would have thought. I always did like learning new things.

Hooray for concerts!!

Tuesday Toby and I went to see Gomez at the Fillmore. Needless to say it was an amazing show. But the opening act really impressed both Toby and I. Here is a little video of them. Their names are Rodrigo and Gabriela and their band is self titled (Rodrigo y Gabriela). Enjoy!