Giving Thanks

Oh Thanksgiving…the time of year that we gather with family to celebrate the things we are most thankful for in our life. And we do this by strappin’ on the ol’ feedbag and chowin’ down.  Don’t worry, somebody usually chucks in a “thanks for the food and for the troops, Amen” before our faces plow the fields of food for the next 4 hours.

Thanksgiving is traditionally celebrated at my aunt’s house as she has a finished basement and its one of the few remaining places where my whole family fits together. To be honest, most restaurants no longer accept our business either. The “décor” of the basement is quite….interesting…shall we say. It looks like any other finished basement; carpeted floors, wooden paneled walls, drop ceiling. Except for 1 stark, punch you in the face difference. My uncle has managed to cover every inch of wall space with pictures. I’m not exaggerating….THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. I would compare it to an art gallery manager’s worst nightmare; as though the art just vomited all over. He has actually gone to the extent to make certain areas of the wall into themes. One area was all pictures of baseball and the Yankees. One area was all space pictures. Very Space Odyssey 2001ish if you will. These themed areas continue, but I will spare you.

I’m going to ask you to hold this décor description in your thoughts for just 2 minutes as I tangent.

With 40 people for dinner, it’s impossible to all sit at a round table and pass the rolls. Instead we do dinner buffet style. It always strikes me funny how the seating arrangements work out for large family dinners now that we are older.  When we were little we used to be relegated to sit at the kids table with my cousins; the goal always being to sit with the adults. But now that we really are adults (somewhat) I still find that we always end up sitting together to form a kids table. The jokes are raunchier, the kool-aid usually contains a little vodka, but our ability to get along hasn’t changed at all. And this is one of those things I’m thankful for.

Unfortunately, because I didn’t sit near my grandma, I didn’t see that she was drinking wine with dinner. This in itself is like the coming of the antichrist. You see, my grandmother, bless her soul, never drinks. NEVER. Be that because she doesn’t like how it makes her feel or because she’s the size of a 5^th grader, one cannot know. From what I was told, she had about 2 ounces of wine. PARTY LIKE A ROCKSTAR. Totally would have obliterated me too. About an hour later, obviously still feeling the effects of the mass quantities she had consumed, about 10 of us were sitting around having dessertS (yes that was plural) and out of nowhere, my grandma goes “I feel totally out of my body, like I’m floating in space.” Listen lady, I lost it. Uncontrolled fit of laughter. This woman was straight of the boat, had survived the great depression, lived through a couple wars, birthed 4 children, and fallen off a roof, but those 2 ounces of red wine……they were her defeat. EVIL NEMISIS.

Remember when I told you to hold that description of the finished basement and all the pictures hanging on the wall. Ok….recall time.

So there we are, in a room full of dangly pictures and my grandma is walking around (keep in mind she feels totally “out of body”) and doesn’t she brush the wall with her derriere and knock down some of these sacred works of art. As the pictures clank on the floor and the room falls silent a voice lofts into the air with “JESUS MARY, WATCH YOUR FAT ASS!” Her own brother actually screamed this from the other corner of the room and I had to roll my mouth up from the floor and go change my depends after this scenario played out. I will vouch for you that my grandmother is not a soul sista…she would not impress Sir Mix-A-Lot. It’s good to see the sibling rivalry still exist s through the years.

Scalpel…. IV….. Machete….. Question Mark.

When you’re driving in your Chevy and you feel something heavy…..

I was out running some errands and as I was driving down a main road in our town, I noticed that an ambulance was parked off to the right hand side of the street. I don’t really consider ambulances all that uncommon so I just assumed someone needed medical attention and I was going to go about my own business. That is until I drove a little further. I noticed that the EMT was not helping anyone with a medical emergency.

In fact, there was absolutely no living being or structure within 100 yards of the EMT as they were standing in the middle of an empty field with 5 foot weeds  all around him. This, of course, piqued my curiosity. Why would this man be standing all by his lonesome in the middle of this field? And then I saw the quick slice through the air. The sun catching just right and throwing a reflection off of the shiny metal and into my gaze; a machete. WAIT. WHAT. This EMT. This life saving Samaritan. This provider of hope and faith. And here they are wielding a Columbian torture device; hacking away against the weeds in this field.

Listen Lady, I don’t know about you, but to the best of my knowledge, EMT’s don’t typically carry around machete’s in their rigs. I don’t think they head out on calls needing IV’s, saline, air masks, and MACHETE’S. If I was injured in an accident and an EMT came to my rescue and suddenly screamed out, “I NEED A MACHETE. STAT!” Hold up Jackie Chan!!! You think I should sign a waiver or something before you come at me with that. Maybe you could at least spray me down with a little pam first….ya know…so that it slices through a little easier.  

It is beyond me as to what this EMT was doing whacking the weeds in this field with a machete. Again, I clarify, there was absolutely no human or structure within 100 yards of him or his vehicle so the reason is beyond my mind as to why he felt the need to clear this field. Perhaps he felt it was his good deed for the week. Perhaps he was searching for buried treasure. Perhaps he was having a flashback and felt he was back fighting against the Viet Cong. Your guess is as good as mine lady.

The 27 year itch?

Let’s just clear the air…it’s not crabs. Glad we got that elephant out of the room.

As we roll into November I’m reminded each year by my loving family about my upcoming birthday. Usually it starts with a gentle nudge from Grandma sometime back in June with “what do you want for your birthday”. For the love of God woman, I don’t know what I want for dinner let alone my birthday. By the beginning of November it has escalated to a full blown throw-down whenever I enter a room with family members.

Seriously folks, I feel like small prey when I enter the room. Settle down and just buy me something. You’ve known me for 27 years. I’m weird and random. Anything that is shiny is bound to impress me. I like neon colors, crazy hats, fat penguins, and am a firm believer that a person can never have too many t-shirts.

To combat the screams of fury I have taken to starting a list of things that I think I’ll need come my birthday and Christmas. This year I put a paper shredder on my list. The funny thing is, all the crap I end up putting on this damn list I need sooner rather than later, but if I don’t have something to rattle off to grandma when she asks I may have an imprint of a wooden spoon on my arse.  Let’s take said shredder for example. After our taxes are done each year I clean out old bills from the previous year and proceed to shred the last 12 months of our life like hell hath no fury. I take pleasure in shredding these bills; I imagine that I’m shredding small bits of the CEO’s hearts whose companies rip me off all year long with their regulatory fees and surcharges and supplemental gas charges. LISTEN LADY, I SWEAR IF YOU MAKE UP SOME B.S. ABOUT ANOTHER CHARGE I’M GOING SPIDER MONKEY ON YOU. I realize the bills are already paid and the money is already gone, but it makes me feel better; please just let me live in my world

Back to my point. This year, I turn the dreaded….dun dun….27. Can I really be this old? Can I really be this close to 30!! THIRTY!! Can I really have survived almost 3 decades without a broken bone? I certainly don’t feel this old? I certainly don’t act this old! Dude, I totally just climbed into my daughter’s playhouse the other day. And internet, you’re all “oh how cute, you were playing with your daughter”.  Nope. She was totally sleeping. I was totally playing in it myself. I still sit and pick out the toys I want from the Toys R’ Us Toy book that comes in the newspaper.  AND YES, I still blow bubbles in my chocolate milk too!!!

Pretty soon I’m not going to be able to check the 25-30 box. I’m going to have to move up to the 30-something box. The clincher though that will define my age are the house parties. Ya know the ones that people throw to try and sell candles or makeup or home interior stuff. To me, this is the ultimate age defeat. I have no idea why I use this as my age marker, but perhaps one day I’ll be enlightened as to my plight against these menacing parties. For now, I think I’ll head back to that playhouse and cherish the next 3 years of my twenty-somethings.