How to spend Thanksgiving version 2009

Taking a prescription pain reliever that begins with Darv and rhymes with marv-a-bet is one way to survive Thanksgiving.

Only one small problem with this plan. You end up imitating a block of cement placed carefully on the couch and covered with a blanket. I enjoyed all of Thanksgiving this year. I was with family I enjoy, next to the fireplace, eating a turkey that had been alive earlier that morning (holy cow!) and looking through ads.

However, I almost fell asleep during dinner and toward the end, during the chatting and nibbling I like so much, my ability to string words into sentences began to disintegrate. Shortly thereafter, chatting became a challenge when thoughts in my head came out of my mouth in ways I didn't fully expect.

Due to a pesky medical procedure earlier this week, which has been one of the reasons I wasn't blogging (sorry), I had some of the marv-a-bet pills on hand. The night of surgery I took one and it didn't put me to sleep at all, so I thought I would be fine on Thanksgiving Day.

Clearly I was wrong. But I want to express my gratitude for the restraint of family members who could have loaded me up with clown makeup or a funny hat and taken photos while I slept through the Hilarious Mayhem.

Here's to Thanksgiving! Let's all have many drug-free holidays to come!

Be the hit of the Thanksgiving Feast!

You can be the hit of all the Thanksgiving day festivities if you have a few days' practice with the following highbrow humor. Give it a try! Don't be shy!

Disclaimer: You just know that with this many breaks, Blogger just has to mess it up. Go figure. No work inside the html is going to fix the mess below, so be of good cheer! Drink a beer!

If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?

Pilgrims!

Why can't you take a turkey to church?

Because they use such FOWL language

What are the feathers on a turkey's wings called?

Turkey feathers

What's the best dance to do on Thanksgiving?

The turkey trot

Can a turkey jump higher than the Empire State Building?

Yes - a building can't jump at all

What do you get when you cross a turkey with an octopus?

Enough drumsticks for Thanksgiving

How can you make a turkey float?

You need 2 scoops of ice cream, some root beer, and a turkey

What kind of music did the Pilgrims like?

Plymouth Rock

Which side of the turkey has the most feathers?

The outside

Why did they let the turkey join the band?

Because he had the drumsticks

What did the turkey say before it was roasted?

Boy! I'm stuffed!

Where did the first corn come from?

The stalk brought it

How did the Mayflower show that it liked America?

It hugged the shore

What did the turkey say to the man who tried to shoot it?

Liberty, Equality and Bad aim for all.

NATURE NOTES!!!!

Oh.my.gosh.

The only meme I participate in is Nature Notes/Signs of the Seasons and this week due to being tired, busy and just plain stupid, I got all wrapped up in myself and I didn't label my post as a Nature Notes because although Michelle kindly said it could have been, I didn't think it was in the right vein.

She's really a sweetheart.

Visit Michelle at the very greenNature Notes Thursday Meme for a list of the best bloggers in the natural world. Check out Thursday's post with the woodpecker and then Friday's post for the bloggers.

Last Thursday she said she just wanted us to write about how we think green and she gave us all a lovely award. My first:
So here I am, days late, to tell you what I do that's green. I have read some of the posts and I assure you, I am seriously lacking.

1. I drive a hybrid car that uses electricity and saves gas.

2. I now enjoy recycling because our city gave us this huge bin that is the same size as the trash can and every other week they pick it up. Our trash can is never full anymore, I don't have to sort anything, just wash out the icky stuff.

3. I don't drive as much as I did, but I do try not to skimp when I do things for the kids. They live downtown and I live in the suburbs, but they're worth it.

4. I run the dryer consecutively to keep it warm instead of letting it cool off. Same with the oven.

5. I grow a vegetable a year. Last summer was leeks. I think, if I can figure out how, I may go with kale this coming year.

6. I don't fertilize or do anything but weed the garden. I just let it grow. This may contribute to my lack of success, but I also like that my leeks and rhubarb are unaffected by chemicals.

7. I take my own bags to the store - grocery store, Target, KMart, you name it. I do not always remember, but mostly I do and I despise those stupid plastic bags. You almost have to wonder if the cashiers get paid by the plastic bag. (HEY!) Maybe Howard will explain this to me.

8. I don't buy chicken unless I get it from a farm. I suppose if I have to, like making a special dish for a friend, I will, but 99% of the time, I do not want a molested, abused, stuffed-in-a-cage corporate chicken on my plate. I buy organic, but not religiously. I buy the milk without hormones and sub-therapeutic antibiotics, but really prefer the outrageously expensive non-homogenized, low heat pasteurized milk. Like, for Christmas, just get me a gift card from HyVee so I can buy some milk at $3.99 a half gallon, I ask you.

That's about all I can come up with right now, but I honestly think there's more than this. Thanks for asking, Michelle!

Ya'll might want to join up with Nature Notes. Obviously (as you see by my inclusion) you do not have to be a birding blog or photography blog, etc.

It's another Saturday night

Remember that song? I didn't know the right words to that song for a long time. But that isn't why I'm here tonight. I'm here tonight to tell you that I make the best soup in the world.

Today I made sausage and kale soup, which is the soup you get at Olive Garden. It's delicious and easy to make. It's easy to eat, too. I'm on my second dish.

I have three big sweet potatoes in the oven baking right now. I'm going to make a yummy sweet potato soup tomorrow. I make a lot of soup every winter. I also bought the ingredients for beef stew, so watch out!

On the topic of movies (I'm so glad you brought that up), this afternoon I watched Here Comes the Groom with Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman. It was very good, not superb, but very good. The ending was the most fun in the whole movie. This guy is a bachelor and he takes two French children home from post-war France, but the law says he has only five days to marry or the kids have to go back. Seems even then they thought it was strange for bachelors to take children home.

Right now I am watching a movie called Rafter Romance. Ginger Rogers is in this one from 1933. She was a very good actress and she excelled at humor. This must have been an early attempt. She's OK, but not par. This movie seems to be a version of Pillow Talk. What I like about old romantic comedies is how they are all the same. Every one of them has material in something that came before. Really, Pride & Prejudice, The Taming of the Shrew, It Happened One Night, even a less-known, not-so-great movie called Rafter Romance all feed the romcom work Hollywood does now. I think that's sort of neat, but I guess there's nothing really new under the sun.

What old movie or romantic movies do you enjoy? Or tell me what sort of soup I should make this winter.

Creativity Night

I got to go to another Talented and Gifted program tonight with Aaron. We made a turtle that looks a little like roadkill (hush, now) You make a turtle out of toothpicks and raisins if it's so easy!!!!

The caterpillar is entirely my own invention. Yessir, I showed it off, too. Aaron took it home.

/beaming/

Today is Nature Notes and I am missing it for the first time. I know exactly what I wanted to discuss, but I have been swamped at work, trying to stay active, going to choir and sleeping (whining) so I am totally unprepared. I was even considering a haiku on my chosen topic, but my haiku skills are pretty weak. Let's practice:

Squirrels nest high
Dark dots in the blackened sky

Um yea. I'm stumped. Earlier today I had a 5-syllable line there but it's gone. I really like how the bare trees expose all those nests.

And lastly, in the midst of this whirlwind of living, my Uncle Gene died this afternoon. I can't say I will miss him, for many reasons we won't discuss (I only saw him once in the past 17 years). But I care about my cousins and losing a parent just plain sucks no matter what.

Grandparents

I watched the movie The Proposal last night and in that movie, the grandmother is played by Betty White. She has a line about how grandparents like to pass things on to their grandchildren because it makes them feel they'll always be a part of their lives.

That made me think of my grandparents. I can't imagine what I would be like without them. First of all, I inherited physical characteristics, like my hips and my hair and my nose. I once saw a photo of one grandmother from her childhood and I saw myself immediately. Granted, not every photo is like that, but this one was and just one photo is enough to warm my heart and make me feel a part of her family deep down inside.

I inherited personality from my grandparents, too. Maybe a lot of it is from my environment, I'm not sure. I do things and say things and maybe even think things that they thought or the way they acted. I can always think of a couple things right off the top of my head that come from one grandmother. The other grandmother taught me things - how to do things like crochet, knit, sew (I'm not good at any of these) and she taught me how to make candles. Plus, I think she is the first adult who let me use a knife in the kitchen.

I wanted to cut a cucumber. She said, "You won't cut yourself, will you?" I shook my head and said no.

Naturally, I cut myself. She handled it extremely well. Let's face it, she knew I was going to cut myself, didn't she?

A good part of all this is that here I am at 44 (and for the rest of my life) still rolling around in the warmth and love and bliss of being their granddaughter. They're all gone now, but I blog about my grandpa shouting at the television, watching Hee Haw at their house and how one decorated Christmas trees and the other wouldn't.

When my last grandparent passed and the house was cleaned out, my precious late father brought to me two old, chipped and completely useless (from use and age) cereal bowls. He thought I would want them. To you, you'd see junk. Bowls you can't eat out of anymore.

Me? I see my grandpa eating breakfast on a Saturday morning.

Eight years ago, I went on a trip and stopped to see my father's cousin. She told me stories about my grandmother, her favorite aunt, that I hadn't heard before. And before I left, she gave me one piece from my great grandmother's china set. One piece! One of the best plates in the world, that. I was so happy that night, I could hardly fall asleep.

Yesterday, I went to a flea market with a friend and I found a sugar bowl and creamer from my grandma's china set that she used for every day. I snapped that up in my hands faster than my brain could process the thought. I would have paid almost any price for it, too. I got both pieces for $8.95.

And what is that all about? That's grandparents for you. I was a cherished granddaughter and you could never convince me otherwise. I never stop wanting to draw all four of them close to me, soaking them into me, into who I am for the rest of my life.

I feel better! I post about heartburn!

I sang in the choir at church for the first time this morning. My throat was full of ... I mean, my head was, no wait, I mean it is sort of a little strange to sing when you need to ... well, none of that is exactly right for polite company. Let's just say I don't have to blow my delicate nose anymore.

So I sang in the choir and there are only four other women: two sopranos and two altos. And me? I'm with the men singing tenor.

I sat next to an alto in practice two weeks ago and for all I knew, she could have been scraping paint off the ceiling in the Sistene Chapel. Those were some seriously high notes and I was really confused, thinking for sure she had said alto and I was left wondering why she was singing soprano. Then I listened for the sopranos and EGADS! Those women sing so high it makes my throat ache. Seriously, it makes my throat constrict. It makes me insane.

So I am a little self-conscious about singing tenor like a moron girl who has NO idea what she's doing ( the truth hurts ) and what is the first thing anyone says to me afterward?

"Were you singing tenor up there?"

Thank you for noticing.

So I spent the entire day with my girlfriend and although I wanted to go for a long walk, shop and go swimming, we ended up shopping, eating and drinking. And now? Now I have heartburn. Do you know that for my entire adult life I didn't know what heartburn was? And now? I have had it all day. Potatoes give me heartburn. Overeating does, too. Score points for both today.

I never really thought this would ever happen to me. Heartburn, I mean.

And on that burning note, I bid you good night.