We Should All Be So Lucky

Did everyone have a good Thanksgiving? Of course you did. I bet there was food, family, maybe some weirdness.

My Thanksgiving had all those things and more. While I wasn't with my kin family, I did spend Thanksgiving with my work family, who are every bit as generous and perhaps even stranger than my kin family. They text me when I am sick, tell me stupid jokes, eat off my plate, nag me to death and expect more of me. God, it IS like they're related to me.

On Thanksgiving they even talked to me through the bathroom door while I tried to pee, just like home!*

Before dessert and after the most delicious stuffing I've ever eaten in my life (sorry mom), we went around the table and said what we are thankful for.

I was happy to look around and see that Ray and I were in the midst of a terrific extended family. Weird and funny and embarrassing and awesome and accepting and perfect, just like every family should be.

When it was my turn I said I was thankful for Ray, my health, my work family, delicious food and boxed wine.

I might have been especially thankful for that boxed wine because I was getting tipsy from it. That's the kind of guest I am - I brought a box of wine to the Boss Man's house as a funny gift - to offend his wine snob sensibilities - and ended up drinking it.

That's why his face is so sad here, he knows he's not going to get to drink that much of it.





Or it's because he hates boxed wine AND Sauvignon Blanc. Who doesn't like SB, anyway? Crazies, that's who.

This particular vintage was super refreshing - it tasted mostly like city tap water (Houston, maybe? Ashtabula?), but had Applebee's dishwater undertones and finished like a Target aisle spill in lane 8. (Which makes sense, since that's where I bought it.)

I don't know what he was crinkling his nose at. I followed the wisdom of at least a 100 sommeliers before me - white wine with white meat. Plus, drinking SB in great quantities can make even the virtual strangers you're eating Thanksgiving with feel like real family - I LOVE YOU GUYS! *sobs into wine glass





But our thankfulness didn't stop there. Saturday morning Ray fried up some potato pancakes with the leftover mashed potatoes Rachel gave us. I'm not even sure if I like mashed potatoes anymore since realizing you can fry them and turn them into something else. Fried mashed potatoes from now on, I say.







Anyway, I hope everyone counted their blessings and had a great Thanksgiving. Next up, Christmas! 


* Because I don't like to stop on the three hour drive home to Indiana to visit my parents, the first thing I do when I walk in the door is drop my bags and run into the bathroom to pee. But my parents are so excited to see me that rather than wait until I come out, they just start talking to me through the bathroom door. How was your trip? Was the drive ok? Did it rain? Why do you have all these bags? Are you feeling ok? What do you want for dinner? And I answer all of them to a point, until finally I'm just, "FOR GOD'S SAKE, GIVE ME ONE MINUTE TO PEE HERE!"

But you really haven't lived until your Boss Man reenacts this for you during Thanksgiving at HIS home. He actually ran after me when I went to pee. I was mid-flush when I heard "Everything ok in there?! Need anything?!" from the other side of the bathroom door. Confused, I was all - GA-WOOSH (flushing) - and opened the door startled: "What?! Is something happening?! Omg, is there a fire?!" And there was the Boss Man, smiling maniacally saying, "Hahaha!!! Just wanted to make you feel at home!"

It was Marion, Indiana in Indian Hill my friends.

Ray of Light

The weeks leading up to my birthday last month were nearly intolerable.

I can't stand it when someone knows something I don't, and somehow I ended up with Ray, who is the king of secrets. Worse, he delights in lording them over me.

For weeks he was bragging, gloating, even relishing the fact that my birthday present was in his possession and it was so amazeballs, apparently, that I would die upon the first sight of it.  

He was really laying it on thick.

Woo!!! Wait, just wait. You're going to LOOOOVE your birthday present so much you're going to freak. Want me to give you a hint?!

Then he'd either lie to me about the hint or forget, because he was bragging so hard.

It's so awesome that even if I completely FORGET your birthday next year you'll HAVE to forgive me. God I'm so awesome - la la la la la!

He was insufferable and worse, unbreakable.

I was suspicious but played along. I figured the present was probably an 8 on the awesome scale, even though he was selling it as a 10.

I thought: Yeah, I love boots, I'll be stoked for boots or a bag or whatever, but come on, this is the pride before the fall. But I'll play along and act like it's a 10 when really it's going to be an 8.

I practiced my 'It's a 10!!!" face.

Besides anyhow, I had already decided whatever it was couldn't be as awesome as what he got me last year: Dylan's Time Out of Mind on vinyl, which you basically have to kill someone for or be willing to sell your first born to get, and a Tiffany lock necklace, which was a nod to the romantic lock bridge we stumbled upon in Paris.

The Pont des Arts bridge in Paris.

I actually cried when he gave them to me. Mostly I was crying because you know how birthdays are always kind of disappointing because you realize no one really knows you, but then suddenly this one shining gift comes through every 20 years or so and you're like, Holy hell, someone DOES get me.

That's what it felt like, so I cried a little at the realization that I was not alone on the planet and that someone in the big giant world understood me. There was a lot going on, ok?!

Finally, after weeks of suffering like this, it was my birthday. I opened the box and my face fell off my face.

MADONNA TICKETS.

Holy effing shit. He got me Madonna tickets!!!!

COME ON, GIRLS! DO YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE?! CAUSE I GOT SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT IT, AND GOES SOMETHING LIKE THIS!

He also got me a fancy watch and the Joe Biden coozy and coffee mug I've been dying for.

Cheers, Uncle Joe.

Look how manically happy he is.

But whatever, MADONNA.

We see her this weekend in Cleveland. Imma dance the entire time and maybe cry and pass out a little and possibly even pee my pants. It's going to be the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Now enjoy some throwback Madonna. That's right, relish it. And be jealous. Verrrrrry jealous.