O-Ho-Ho

A little over a week and then we head to Ohio. I hate going there and I love going there. The drive... sucks, at best.
Our old route (from Greensboro to Ohio) took us on a completely different path than the one we face now. You;d head through windy (that's wind, as in, if you drive to fast, you could flip going through all those turns) West Virginia mountains on the turnpike and up through the middle of Ohio. You'd pass through Merrietta (my mother would call this the halfway point and insist on eating lunch there). You'd see Big Boy's and the Canton Football Hall of Fame. You'd go through hilly areas with Ohio barns and you had a choice of two exits to get to Rob's folks.
The route we take next week? B-O-R-I-N-G. Its features include shitloads of traffic outside, in and all around DC. It could be noon on a Sunday or 3 AM on a Wednesday - doesn't matter. Everybody gets sucked into this traffic blackhole only to chug along at 20 mph, if you are really cruising. Somehow, the drive back home through DC is far worse thus extending your last hour of the drive into a 2 hour hell.
You then get to go through a small blip of the Maryland wetlands and into Pennsylvania - the paved turnpike featuring no features at all. This concrete mass has been underconstruction every time I have been on it. There's no shoulder anywhere, so once (when we were driving on this thing in a January snowstorm) we nearly got killed by sliding 18 wheelers and idiot drivers slooshing through mushy snow that had nowhere to drain. This turnpike locks you into a 3 hour tour of the rather open, large hills of the Penn area while you desperately search for anything to eat other than Rob Roy. I don't what Rob Roy did to get the king seat as the only eatery on the Penn Turnpike - but its completely unfair to those of us plagued with the ability to taste.
Lastly, we then switch from the Penn Turnpike to the Ohio Turnpike (the drive from Richmond to Ohio is about $13 in tolls). This drive is flat, flat, flat and offers nothing to look at. Somewhere around a half hour later, you spot a camper area and know that you are about there. Then Rob begin pointing out such features as where Aaron spent his bachelor night, where the used auto dealer used to be a Red Barn restaurant and where this one club has changed owners yet again. Its like my dad. I roll my eyes but I think I actually like the ritualistic part of it. It completes the trip really.
Only one more week until Swensen's, Cincinnati Chile restaurants, Gabriel's Brothers, Kent State University bars (the Zephyr) and the News & Photo Shop (I have no idea why we go here nearly everytime).

Black Friday

Well, I have 9 minutes before I need to head off to work. Nothing quite like me trading off a retail job for another. *wink*
Today will include about 1/7 of the company actually going to work, a lot of online shopping throughout the day, the movie "Christmas Vacation" and perhaps some work. Actually, I do have a project to knowck out by Monday so the day won't be a complete pain-in-the neck with all my friends sleeping in... but I'd really rather still be in bed and watch my movie on my couch.
This weekend we simply MUST go Christmas shopping. Ugh, ... if I knew what to buy it might be easier. But we only have this weekend and next before the great migration North to visit extended family for a pre-holiday Christmas celebration. I need to buy things for people I never see and really do not know (yes, I know my grandma, but do you really know your grandma and what might make opening her gift this year a Christmas worth remembering?). And gift cards, despite being easy and people don't mind getting them (its better then returning what the gift-giver thought was just perfect), just isn't fun to wrap.
I really hate it went Christmas comes down to being a chore. This year - all the fun stuff is getting squeezed around our crazy schedule. I hope next year is a little more evenly paced. It makes each weekend more fun: ie, this weekend you buy, that weekend you wrap, the next weekend has the tree picked out & decorated, and then you bake cookies.

I {heart} baking

Tomorrow's Rob's birthday (35), so I made him a cake tonight.

T'Give

Holy crap. Is Thanksgining... tomorrow?!. *gulp*
I know, I know - EVERYONE says that the holidays sneek up on them. r, that each year goes by faster and faster. Its damned, true, too. the only part no one ever says - and c'mon, many of you must admit - that it seemingly loses the special magic year after year.
Yes, last year's T'giving was a blast. I held my very first one with 4 friends over AND that was the night that Betty appeared in our backyard close to midnight (oh, the joy!).
But, when I think of Thanksgiving - the first thought in my head is my mom's pink dining room in chicago. Of the time she tried to make duck - and my father and I demanded turkey for the following year. Listening to the same George Winston, "Winter," casette (my dad was notorius for borrowing people's records and turning them into tapes. Fantastic sound quality I must say). Dad carving the turkey with the electric knife - only reserved for this once a year occasion... and him inevitably gasping and licking his fingers, "Ouch - its hot!" My cats, Luckey and Smokey - now both gone, begging in the kitchen for turkey left overs. My dad's all-day long turkey soup cooking the very next day (the man can turn a 5 minute recipe into a 9 hr. ordeal). And my mother collapsing on the couch vowing she'd never do it again.
Will I look back on this year's with the same rosey glow or do we somehow reserve limited space of childhood memories like this with little room for much more? My nostalgia never seems to progress to any more recent times. Does this mean I enjoyed them less? I don't think so.. but still, somehow it feels very different. Maybe i'm more aware of this and 5 years from now - this year's Thanksgiving will have stood out as yet another amazing holiday. Only time will tell.

Blister in the Sun

So, I caught the tail-end of "Blister in the Sun" while in the shower this morning. I hadn't heard this song in years. I think they played it at every single high school dance at Fremd. (And I should know, I attended them all. Yes, all 4 proms, too. No, I didn't get around... I was just a fantastic date. OK, maybe I was also a vulnerable freshman dating a junior but that's a whole other story).
I remember being absolutely mortified when I left a mix casette (ah, remember casettes? We don't even own a cassette player anymore) tape in the Bronco when I borrowed it one afternoon. I was 16 and rocking out at full volume with friends.
My mom later takes the car and instead of turning off the music... she just turns it down. Linda really has never cared what she's listening to - she's like me - goes blank. But the woman listened to this song and comes home asking, "Why are you listening to song some about a guy masterbating?"
You'd think I was embarrassed about her knowing what the song was about.
I never knew what the hell he was singing about... and she told me.
How embarrassing.

Update

I haven't been blogging for 2 reasons:
1. I can't blog at work (well, I could, but then everyone at my new employer will know that I'm nuts...just like what happened at my old employer).
2. Comcast BLOWS. We've had 3 people out all claiming to have "solved" the riddle as to why our modem poops out. Only to have it, again, poop out 5 minutes later. Yesterday you could actually see it go off and on in 3 minute intervals... its completely annoying. Especially when you are waiting to launch a new post.

congrats to Meg and Jay! Baby's born TODAY! Yippee!

What are you reading this for? Get out &

VOTE!

For Better Or For Worse

We cut back our Crepe Myrtle this weekend. Its located on the side of the house - the side where the next-door-neighbor's Magnolia tree has reached unreal proportions (its seriously the tallest Magnolia that anyone has ever seen. People gawk at its enormous trunk... and then take notice at the root structure which is beginning to ruin both our and the neighbors foundation).
The Crepe Myrtle was beautiful. Hot pink flowers that later "rained" down in a light breeze in the late summer. The only problem - it was bending under the weight of the crazy Magnolia and growing up OVER the top of our roof. It was huge and had been let go. I decided to take action - and top it off this weekend hoping that it will A. return next spring and B. be back to its normal, typical height where one can walk under it AND enjoy its blooms.
After chainsawing this thing down, Rob turns to me and says, "Well, honey. this will either be one of your best ideas... or your worst."
Here's hoping for the former.

Wah-Wah

Driving home from work yesterday, I decided to take a break from the never-ending NPR fund drive and switched to this station called "Liberty". they pride themselves on playing COMPLETELY random songs from new to classis. They'll put things like Phil Collins (love 'em) next to Nine Inch Nails next to Led Zepplin and then wrap up the segment with some Creed. Its awful. sometimes its fabulous... like when they whip out Edie Brickell.
"I'm not aware of too many things...
I know what I know if you know what I mean..."
I was taken back to college. My roommate used to play this album all the time (along with The Indigo Girls). I turned it up and essentially hot-boxed myself with the sweet sounds of a nice power ballad.
And then came the magical part that makes my heart giddy - the wah-wah.
You just gotta love a wah-wah that makes you want to put a groove in your step.
I need to put this song on my iPod.

I'm allergic to nuts

So we had maybe 10 whole trick-or-treaters this year. That's 3 more than last year. Who-hoo!
The second-to-last batch came around 8:30PM. A brother, about 10 or 11 years old, and his sister about 6 (when you don't have kids you haven't a clue how to tell ages. I could be way off). I recognized the dad from a recent volunteering event I had done. I waved and ackowledge him as I stuck candy in his kids' bags. I gave the boy a York Peppermint Patty and some vanilla Tootsie Rolls. The girl got a Take Five candy bar and some Tootsie Rolls. As the kids walked down my walkway to meet up with dad... the boy starts slowing and digging through his stuff. Dad starts flagging him in.
"Wait a minute! Wait a MINUTE!", the boy is talking to either me or dad. I'm standing on my stoop... waiting.
He turns around with the patty in hand, "I DON"T LIKE MINT!"
I'm a little baffled at this outburst. I mean, when I was a kid - the goal was to gather as much freaking candy as HUMANLY possible before it was lights out at 9PM. You then raced home with a sack (LITERALLY weighing 6 lbs) only to begin bartering with your friends. Example, I always hated Butterfingers but loved Bottle Caps. And so, the great trading game would begin.
I chuckle to the kid's dad (yes, I chuckled, bug off),"Its OK!" turning to the boy, "You want to do a trade? I got ...uh... Take Five here...[dig, dig]... and uh...."
"I'M ALLERGIC TO NUTS!" He almost blurts at me as he plunks the peppermint patty back into my bowl.
What the hell kid. What the fuck are you out BEGGING for candy then? I mean, c'mon. You're embarrassing me, your humilating dad... and just look at your well-behaved sister who's stuck trolling behind your candy-ass (pun sort of not intended) only to miss out on a great haul.
"Well, everything else I have HAS nuts [thumbing past some Reeses Cups]."
"I'm ALLERGIC TO NUTS!" he begins to lean into my bowl. I'm getting a little annoyed like this kid thinks I don't know what nuts are... like he needs to assist me in reading the labels or something.
"Uh, how about a bunch of vanilla tootsie rolls?" I suggest," Its all I got [waving 3 candies in the air]."
"DOES IT HAVE NUTS?"
No you fucking dolt. Have you ever heard of Tootsie Rolls? I think they were invented during WW1 for God's sake.
Dad starts to help me,"C'mon buddy - yeah, those are great, get some of those. I'll eat 'em"
I take the outstretched hand of opportunity and shove the candies in his bag, "There you go! Give these to dad - he likes 'em. G'night!"


I really wish I could have tape-recorded this event.