Thanksgiving Eve

Dragon Mood? -- befuddled

Today is Wednesday, Wendishday, December 6th.

Where have I been? .......... (slow sigh) ......... Well, I've been here ... and there ... and sometimes it feels like everywhere!

Let me back up to Thanksgiving week. (ahem!)

Steph and I worked Monday and Tuesday. We arrived back at the pine trees house around 10, Tuesday evening? Caroline and Josh rolled in around 1 or 1:30 a.m. I was already in my jammies and snoozing on the couch.

Wednesday we arose leisurely, drank coffee, skipped breakfast (as I recall) and headed pretty much straight for El Azteco. I rode with the kids, Steph followed later. Jess was in town from Phillie, via Chicago, to visit with her high school peeps. We sat in the smoking section on the benches that back up to the kitchen -- perfect vantage point for watching the streetscape before us. We ordered lots of pitchers of Margaritas, numerous bowls of El Az's spicy cheese dip, mountains of their homemade tortilla chips and then .... we ordered lunch.

Lina took lots of pictures. We caught up on one another's lives. We talked about plans, or rather non-plans for Jess's graduation. We talked about the Jersey shore. We talked about NYC. We talked about things I can't even remember!

Steph joined us and the conversation got livelier. And more argumentative. As I recall? But then again, I was drinking margaritas. Does anyone really know? Care?

After a long leisurely lunch at El Az's, we mosied over to Campbell's Smoke Shop and bought some see-gars. Well, Lina did.

Then, it was on to Beggar's. You know, the place that I like to drink dirty martinis? Actually, my second favorite place to drink dirty martinis. (My first place is Jeanne and Joanne's. That's 'cuz Jeanne puts all kinds of loving TLC into her dirty martinis. And big olives stuffed with almonds. And .. they're free!)

Things get a little fuzzier around this time. Oh yes, now it's coming back to me. Steph headed home -- to take a nap, the little stinker. Josh, Lina and I headed to Meijer's to do some last-minute Thanksgiving shopping. This is now 4 o'clock, Wednesday afternoon. We're pretty well tooted, if you know what I mean. Lina, of course, is insisting that she's not tooted, but the more she wandered Meijer's aisles, the more her tootedness became apparent.

As I recall, the three of us were like heated molecules in the store, bouncing all over the damn place. Amazingly, I think we forgot only two or three items. Which, when you consider how much alcohol we had just consumed, is pretty darn good.

We got home, and thankfully, all helped to put the groceries away. Then we all headed to our respective horizontal surfaces to get, well, horizontal.

I slept for maybe an hour-and-a-half. It was dark when I woke up. Dehydrated and a bit disoriented. Everyone else was still sleeping. I started cooking and before long, out wandered S. She made some coffee, drank some coffee, woke up slowly and started cooking. Around 9:30 or 10:00 p.m., Caroline and then Josh woke up and the whole famn damily was now awake and cooking. We cooked until 1:00 or 1:30 or so. It felt good to get a headstart on all the food preparation awaiting us.

I was looking forward to our Thanksgiving together. All in all, it was a very good day!