WEDNESDAYS

Thanksgiving is

always an unusual time in our household.  The only real tradition we seem to carry on is changing it up every season.  This year Dan cooked a turkey.  I even bought two birds so we could cook another one closer to Christmas.  He smoked the turkey and it was fabulous.  For the past several years we have skipped turkey altogether.  Occasionally the whole turkey dinner thing makes Dan very ill so we avoid it more often than not.  I guess we were feeling lucky this year.   

Last year we had tiny Cornish hens so the kids could have pretend turkey and I couldn't tell you what else we had.  Last year my dad was still living in his own home.  Last year I couldn't have imagined how much paperwork, lawyer visits, doctor visits and sleepless nights I would have this year.  Last year I couldn't see the riptide that was surely pulling me out into uncharted waters or that (thanks to all the drama I survived when I was much younger) I was able to negotiate with much less drama.

One of the big things that helped me this year besides my fiends and family were all my imaginary friends, many new and some very old and dear, that I took the time to get to know.  A few I have mentioned here like Bella and Edward and Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett.  Others like Lestat and about 100 others, well I guess they live on in their worlds and in my heart.  I have gotten back to reading this last year with a vengeance.  It has helped calm my mind which is constantly going and it has helped me get through the thousands of hours I have spent waiting on all of my family members while they do their thing.  I average at least ten full hours of waiting per week if not more at doctor's offices, dentists, music lessons, cheer practices.  EVERY WEEK, without fail.

I have plenty to be thankful for this year because my life is filled with people who love me and seem to always be there when I need a smile or a helping hand.  True, some only live in the stories I love but many are real and present in the universe.

ps  I saw a shooting star tonight.  In fact Dan and I saw it at the same time.  It's nice to know that were looking at the same place in the universe at the same time after all the time we have spent together.  I made a huge wish at that moment.  And then a little later I walked outside and I saw a meteor fly by in seriously the largest arc I have seen a meteor make since probably before Dan and I got married.  He took me stargazing somewhere outside of Julian when we were still dating in 1992?  There was a meteor shower visible that night and the sky put on an amazing show.  Tonight the meteor started to the left of our house and went clear across the sky in this amazing arc of light.  Yes, I made a wish again.  The same wish.  And I am sure that no one will ever guess what that wish was.  How's that for a cliffhanger/letdown? 

Whatever, I will try again

I haven't felt this frustrated in a while and I am sure that I had more than enough sugar today so I am blaming that.  However, yesterday we spent another long, broke ass day at competition.  (insert the first lines from Fergie's Glamorous:  If you ain't got no money take your broke ass home.)  As if.  The day was fine and I actually am not harboring any ill will towards the whole cheer/competition deal.  First of all we traveled to Long Beach, or the LBC bitches, and then we waited and waited and waited.  The girls didn't get to perform until almost  9 pm.  Seriously behind schedule, unorganized crapola.

  In the meantime, we were at the LBC convention center which was NASTY dirty and old and in the middle of a massive redo.  In the entire place, they had ONE working bathroom.  It was new and clean, but it was ONE for how many cheerleaders, moms, grand moms etc. 

  At some point two obnoxious idiot teenagers decided to chuck penny's from the top row.  Where is Edward when we need him for pyre building and neck snapping?  Then a girl several rows below blew her nacho cookies and ----wait for it---- a guy came up with a shovel and a broom to clean it up.  NO gloves, no mop, no disinfectant spray.  Just a SHOVEL and a broom.  My friends were gagging and averting their eyes.  I was mesmerized.  Haven't ever seen a fool try to shovel barf.  SO GROSS.

  Before that incident Abby led me on a wild chase to the bathroom which she was sure she knew the way to.  "Follow the yellow brick road."  We ended up in a backstage area where some other LBC fool asked us, "How did you get here?"  "Well, we apparated of course."  If only I had my wand with me I could have pointed it at his head and yelled, "Stupefy."  Dumb ass.

  While driving home we depended on Marna's trusty I-phone which led us to some roundabout in the middle of some Vietnamese super markets and the Out of the Closet Thrift store.  She later claimed to be able to see Oceanside from somewhere just past the power plant.  Sure Marna and I see dead people.

  In the end our girls did not win a place at Nationals.  But that is okay.  We can have a regular Christmas this year.  They did the best they could after having two big injuries happen to two of our best tumblers just last week.  Abby ended up in a stunt group doing a whole string of stunts she had not practiced at all with girls who didn't normally base her.  I was proud of how they all pulled it together.  It was a long season but a good one.  Go Oceanside.

now i am just pissed

I had a great post and the computer ate it and shut me down. bah

San Francisco

  What a great trip this turned out to be and so full of unexpected kindness.  Dan works for Edison and has gotten the opportunity to travel a bit more in the last few years.  He isn't a big fan but he has gotten to go to some new places.  For the most part he goes on his own and I take care of the kids etc.  And when I have travelled he has stayed home and done the same.  We haven't really been away together for about 5 years?  when we went to Las Vegas for our ten year anniversary.  Since we don't have the benefits of living near family who are willing and/or able to take care of our children, travelling is just tough.  Plus they have school and music and cheer, etc.

  Dan was asked to go to this conference which was hosted by a software company that is getting ready to install their product at Edison.  The company is called Devonway and they were so nice and generous.  Spouses were invited to come along and they set up tours and shopping for us.  They took us to lunch at restaurants where wilted watercress was treated like a food group.  One day we all took a tour of the del Dotto winery in Napa.  We went barrel tasting in their wine caves.  That was very fun.

  We all stayed at the Palace Hotel which is part of the Luxury Collection.  It was so beautiful and well maintained.  The building was very old with window sills a foot deep.  The windows even opened.  The hotel is right downtown so we were able to walk to the Embarcadero, Chinatown, Union Square, and this other mall with seven stories of shopping and a Bloomingdales and a Nordtroms.  I haven't experienced San Francisco like this before.  We were out walking and getting someplace.  Our life here is lived in a car and the only place you can truly walk to is the school.  I also got to spend some time with my very good friend Jason who lives and works in the city.  He is trying to finish up his degree.  He and Stryker took us to this fabulous restaurant somewhere in the middle called Zazi's.  I had black truffle raviolis and I think Stryker had the duck.  Dan had the last steak in the place.  It was the kind of place I only get to see in the movies and the kind of night I wish we had more of here in San Diego.  But we just don't have that kind of cafe atmosphere. Heavy sigh. Here are a few sights.  We saw plenty.