The Thanksgiving Post

Today my husband (ha, isn't that a funny word? I am still working on using it in daily conversation, anyway) Today, Michael and I are driving down to San Diego to have fancy Thanksgiving dinner with my cousin Amy and her husband (the chef/very important government lawyer guy), my pseudo Uncle John (actually 1st cousin once removed/also some sort of fancy rights protecting lawyer guy) and his wife Karen (who I can't write anything real in parenthesis about because I don't really know her yet).
I, unfortunately, am up at 7am so the drive and the turkey tryptophan effect (if that is true) combined with my love for the vino, should have me passing out in the guest bedroom shortly after dinner. Oh, and in this family we do dinner at a reasonable hour. None of that middle of the afternoon nonsense. If you do that, how do you fit in appetizers and cocktails? Also, as much as I love wine, the idea of cracking open a bottle to have dinner at 11:30am is even a little much for me.
Amy has reported that she has been banned from the kitchen today, which would be funnier if the kitchen was larger and could feasibly fit two cooks with the oven door open. This cozy group of 6 will be a welcome change from my last Thanksgivings, one at my parent's house with 23 of my closest relatives and 3 toddlers, and one at our apartment in Cincinnati where Michael and tried to starve everyone and didn't serve dinner until around 7pm because I was so excited about cooking my first turkey that I continually opened the oven door to baste the turkey, thereby bring the oven temperature down substantially and making the turkey cook in twice the expected time. Whew, how's that for a run on.
The almost-Thankful Part
In my crappy Monday staff meeting, I obligatorily told the staff that I was thankful for having all of my assistants in my class. I repeated this when we did what I am thankful for with the kiddos so they would have some examples (ooohh modeling remember it is Kindergarten), and then I prompted each of my kid's to raise their hand to come up front and say they were thankful for their Mommies.
Yesterday I found out that the school is replacing my assistants with other people. I don't think the people in charge understand that having to train staff is almost like having extra little kids around for a month. Now I am just hoping the replacement is quick and painless.
But really, I am thankful I have a wonderful husband. (there's that word again and ugh that sentence makes me want to gag, but seriously he kicks ass; does the laundry, cooks yummy food, brings me fizzy drinks, and wakes me up to go to bed when I fall asleep on the couch)
I am thankful that I have such a wonderful family on both coasts, who I can visit with and eat lots of food with over the holidays. And most of all I am thankful that I can be stressed about the trivial things in life from my own comfortable home. I do not have to worry about my own daily living conditions. I can feel sorrow over the tragedy and unfair conditions in my community and my world in the awareness that I am healthy and safe in my place in the world. And as much as my little snotty monsters make me crazy, I see them learning (some very slowly, but learning) and I am thankful for the small changes, I can make with my little guys everyday. (Whoa, preachy anyone? Now I have to go find some light Thanksgiving humor writing to read)
Well here is something amusing from last year, I am not sure anyone drinking can report back this early in the morning even on the east coast.

the exciting weekend recap

When I am not stressing out about things I cannot humanly take care of with school and my little guys; I am hanging out at home and watching bad cable, and sometimes actually going out and doing interesting things. This Saturday I went to a shmancy restaurant in Hollywood called Geisha House. I stuffed myself with expensive sushi and hung out with Michael's classmates, while surreptitiously looking around to see who in fact could afford this food and if maybe they were famous (no I didn't really do that, it was the type of restaurant where I should have. Hip and fancy with a DJ and an expensive wine and drink list). Then we went dancing at a club that had 3 DJ's in 3 rooms; 80's, hip-hop and what I was calling the 90's room that was in fact the inde rock room. I was leaning towards hanging out in the large inde room with all of the young gothy crowd and the depressing music but my crowd leaned hip-hop and so I found myself shaking my ass to the likes of Britney and Paris along with some random Madonna, Prince and I like big butts. A totally strange night but it is definitely fantastic to have found friends that like to dance as much as Michael does. This is something we occasionally talked about but never did in Cincinnati (besides the rare Salsa night). We wandered later through 90's/inde or what I thought of as my first two years of college and into 80's. 80's was small and also full of strange hipster gothy kids but unfortunately also full of the smoke from the outside smokers cage (I mean lounge), not nearly as bad as a bar in Philadelphia but the idea of having to wash my hair 16 times to get the smoke smell out made me ready to leave. This was the first time I went out in Hollywood and it was odd. We took the train 3 stops too far on our way there (reminder to self, mapquest directions even when Michael seems to know what he is doing) and then when we actually got to where we needed to be it was like being on another planet. Clots of people with cameras filled the star lined sidewalks and street performers and street preachers were everywhere, along with the scary attack asian lady that was selling flowers in a sort of yelly aggressive ready to walk right into me sort of way. The sidewalk outside of one theater was closed (making me irritable about security scams and being made to feel like a peon to walk a block out of the way and across the street so that the "famous" Tara Reid could avoid the masses (Of course that is just me being me because Jerome was all poetic about how he loved living in a city that has movie premieres). My memorable nice and human part of the night was talking to the asian convenience store old guy. I chose to forsake the silly girly high heels since the last time I went dancing my feet hurt for three days. Unfortunately, my comfy black flats don't actually fit. Old guy said, "Blister?" When I got to the counter, in a prophetic I worked here forever sort of way. Then said something about the people who come here think Hollywood is a little place where they need to look fancy and won’t actually have to walk anywhere. I showed him my comfy (yet blister forming) shoes, and he agreed that they did look comfy.
Tonight I return to school stress, and tomorrow to little snotty ones and what I hope will be successful meetings.

travel 2

I just found this post when I was adding labels to old posts (while half assedly watching the moving Munich ahh Spielbert (this was a typo that I am leaving in now because it cracks me up--the movie was scratched and unwatchable in the end). Anyway, I realized that I have been in a lot more states this summer, so here is my new map.

The first time I did it I forgot Missouri and the states didn't connect. I had to ask Michael what state I missed. Now it is fixed. He said "Missouri, remember St. Louis."and I said "Oh yeah, the arch."

the more I don't post

The bigger the task of posting becomes...so then I can't do it because my life feels like a novel, too long for this format.
So here is the bullet point update to get things rolling again.
October/early-November bullet synopsis

• I got married (it was rainy and fun)
• It was on the east coast and full of family and drinks and beach and rain and coastal flood warnings
• teaching is hard
  
• and as much as I hate the whiney teacher mantra about not getting paid enough etc. This is the hardest most stressful job, I've ever had.)--that being said
• I still like small children (They are cute and huggy --though often snotty--that is runny nosed not stuck up)
• I went to a week long literacy training and actually missed my kids
• I turned 30
• this involved 2 yummy dinners, a yummy breakfast,
  
• a visit from Amy
  
• and a pseudo surprise party with Michael's friends/classmates and significant others who were fantastic stand in friends
  

ta da, now I posted. All comment based questions shall be answered forthwith.
I don't actually know what forthwith means but it sounds official.