Thanksgiving: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

At the risk of offending anyone who reads this and is related to me, here's the lowdown on the Top 10 terrific events of the 2007 Wellons-Davis-Baker-Woodley-Waters-Dufty Thanksgiving.

10. I made chili, lots of people ate it and no one died. Amazing. Also, I hosted a casual dinner in my new den and no one spilled on the new chair. Again, amazing.

9. Someone found the Thanksgiving Blessing that my grandfather read the year I was born. At the end: "Thank you, dear Lord, for the newest member of our family, little Elizabeth."

8. The subfloors were down in the farmhouse, the appliances were in and most of us were able to sit in the same room to eat. It was glorious to see Dad and Drew toasted for their work. They were proud boys on Thursday, as well they should be.

7. My mother-in-law asked my cousin out on a date. The date never materialized, but still. Enough said.

6. In the middle of the Friday night oyster roast, my parents' next door neighbor found our cat, George, collapsed at the end of their driveway. We put him down Saturday morning and we all cried buckets. The vet gave us a cement impression of his right front paw...incidentally, the one we think he used to slap a deer. Rest in peace with Casey, Sylvester and Pepper, George. You were a great, fierce cat and you will be missed.

5. I think my brother and his girlfriend are getting serious. I think I really like her, and I'm pretty sure my parents are starting to: she cleaned oysters with my dad. Good girl.

4. I snapped at both of my aunts this weekend. It's high time they figured out that while I do respect my elders, I do not answer to them and I am not one of their children. So there. And anyway, I don't know how they confuse me with my cousins. Someone (whose initials are WV and who should know better), told Caroline that it's a good thing someone in the family ended up looking like a model. It's true. Check out the picture below. She's 5'9, 12 lbs., and her legs are longer than my entire body. Yes, we are related, though I understand how that's hard to believe.

3. Shucking oysters is fun. I am good at it, I enjoy it and I'm only sorry that I wasn't the one who found the black pearl in a leftover shell. That was Lindsey, Drew's girlfriend. I suppose it's her prize for putting up with our entire family for 8 hours.

2. Finally, Drew made his world-famous bleu cheese burgers. They are as good as they sound, and they are the perfect for when you've eaten too much turkey, too many pieces of pie and have had so many glasses of wine you've lost count of your family members and you think that Ron White really is funny.

1. For the first time since we've been married, there wasn't a fight over who spent more or less time with whom. We spent equal amounts of time with each family and we managed to get along with everyone. It's a holiday miracle! If only this will last through Christmas...

The picture below is of Bennett, me, Mom and Caroline - after a long, long Thanksgiving Day and entirely too much wine.

Dirty Thirties and The Bachelor

I enjoy making lists. There's something about a list that says, "I'm organized. I really have it together." Despite the fact that in my life this is a total lie, I still compile lists like a crazy person.

1. Brad the Bachelor made the total wrong choice last night. Oh yeah, I watch "The Bachelor." Frankly, I can't help it. It comes on right after "Samantha Who?" which is a fantastic new show and somehow I can't turn the tv off when I should. Either way, Brad sent Bettina home. Baaaad idea.

2. November is, like, totally here already. Why? I'm not ready for Christmas. I'm not ready for all thousand of my friends with November birthdays to turn 30. I'm not even ready for Halloween yet.

3. Speaking of Halloween, Drew throws the greatest Power Tool Pumpkin Carving parties ever. Granted, my pumpkin looked like an alphabet gone wrong when it was supposed to look like a cat sitting on the moon, but whatever. Nobody else on our street even had a jack-o-lantern. So there.

4. Out of the 160 some odd students in our program, 47 are not doing satisfactory work in their classes. I'm not surprised. My informal poll of instructors has shown that out of all the years I've worked here (5, by the way), this crop of students is the worst by far. They're mean, disrespectful and apparently not very bright.

5. Today is Election Day. This reminds me of Election Day last year, when I asked one of my students whether or not she voted. "No m'am," she said to me. "I don't vote for counselors. I only vote because the Sheriff is my cousin and he won already." Wow.

6. I'm anticipating the Holiday Power Struggle to begin this week. My MIL is coming for lunch and I can feel the inevitable question coming, kind of like I can feel a bad hair day right when I wake up. "Are y'all going to come for Thanksgiving?" Ugh, the dread.

7. Who is Sabrina Bryan and why does anyone care that she got voted off Dancing with the Stars? We didn't know who she was before she danced. Why do we care now? Also on my Hollywood radar: the writers' strike and Katie Holmes. So Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert aren't funny enough on their own to write a script for their show? Step up to the plate, boys. And good job, Katie Holmes. You didn't tell anybody you were running in the NY marathon, but you showed up, ran the whole darn thing and then went out in a pantsuit and heels the same night. I knew I liked you.

8. Josie (and apparently her friend Eric) are hosting "Josie and Eric's Dirty Thirty Tiki Bar Hootenanny and Bar/Bat Mitzvah" this Saturday. I can't go, mainly because I'm too boring and don't leave the house to go to the grocery store, much less to Brooklyn. But oh my God does it sound fun. Josie, here's to you, babe. I hope that your Dirty Thirty Tiki Bar Hootenanny and Bar/Bat Mitzvah is everything you hope it will be. And more.

9. Three burning questions I have this morning, in no particular order: 1. Can you freeze a potato casserole? 2. What's too much to spend on Christmas cards? 3. Will Nicole Richie, Christina Aguilera and Jennifer Lopez all have cute babies that can sing?

10. My new chair is here. It is lovely. It is comfortable. It is all things bright and beautiful. I didn't get out of it all weekend, except maybe to go to the bathroom and shuffle some clothes around (to make it look like I was doing laundry). Is it wrong to have that much love for a piece of furniture?