Thanksgiving & Other Assorted Stunts

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone, and even though there was a much lusted after four day weekend for me, it was in all reality, a bit of a let-down. For all the hype that it was building up to be, it was just slightly better than okay. Which is what this post will probably be.

The days leading up to Thanksgiving, my wife had a limited amount of time to clean the house. When my wife expects company, it's a little bit like a house overhaul. The house just becomes this non-functional Ikea display home. Nothing useful can be found, and things may look pretty, but they sure as hell won't make any sense. All my stuff on my desk was moved to a better home, namely in boxes upstairs at the back of my desk. My phone charger cord was missing, and when I asked my wife where it was, she thought that I probably had it hidden somewhere. So I thought her that it was probably in some obscure box in the back of the closet and it'd be better if she gave it a go. And sure enough, I caught her trying to sneak it back on my desk because it was in some obscure box in the garage. Even now, the apples are still sitting on a rack in the middle of the living room. Weird. I suppose I won't miss anything that I can't see.

But getting a bit ahead of myself. First of all, good news on the job front is that they not only met my request for a pay bump, they upped it a little to keep me contended. Goes to show kiddies, sometimes the worst thing about asking is being turned down. So once the whole background thing checks out, I'll be making a buck 25 more than I am now. This may not mean much to most, but to us bottom dwellers, it's kinda a big deal. Especially when I hit the OT, baby.

Anyway, sometime in the middle of the week, I was dismayed to find out in the morning that I had run out of deodorant. Now that in itself isn't really noteworthy. What makes the story is that I know that I'm a bit of a sweaty bastard, and that if I don't use something, I'll just end up stinking raunchy at work. So I did what a married man would do in that situation, which is to use my wife's deodorant. I somehow failed to purchase my own so I wore "Mystic Rain" for two days, worrying for two days at work that someone might catch on and ask, "Why are you using my wife's scent?"

As we were approaching Thanksgiving, we cleaned up house, got three turkeys (all free), gave away one, and I even experimented in brining. My verdict on brining is a little skewed, since I did leave the turkey in there a little longer than I should have, and it was a little saltier than I had wanted it, but it was okay. Couldn't really say if I would do it next year or not, the trouble that it took to brine two freaking turkeys in giant ziplock bags.

Thanksgiving day itself was okay. The kids enjoyed the company of the other kids, and my wife's daughter got to come visit, which was fine. My brother did something that I wasn't real happy about - he had come and dropped off my Mom, and then said something about going for a walk and then left without saying. My mom relayed that he found it rude that one of the guests had failed to acknowledge him when he showed up. I myself found it ruder that he had ditched us after we made sure that was enough food that was cooked, that we sorted through all our toys to make sure most of it was toddler safe for his son, and that we even vacated a spot outside our house so that he could park there. But despite that shortfall, Thanksgiving turned out pretty nice. The kids had a lot of fun so that was great.

And Black Friday wasn't a big deal for me. I have gotten to that point that I did own most of the toys that I could possibly have, so I just got a couple of used games and that was the extent of it. There's a thing on Amazon.com that I have my eye on, which could either cost me a fortune or nothing at all, depending on my luck. On the other side of the argument, it will either save me a lot of money in the long run, or make me some for the holidays. More on that as it unfolds later this week, I suppose.

Well, back to work tomorrow. I'm still not sure what happens when I go to bed at 3 something in the morning last night and have to wake up at 4:30am later this morning. Probably will hurt a good deal.