Thanksgiving 2009

"Find the good and praise it."

-Alex Haley

Mine and Jason's first Thanksgiving as a married couple was, well, unconventional. No family, no turkey or tofurky, no dogs begging for scraps under the table, no table, no crisp fall weather, half a world away from home in a country that (naturally) does not celebrate Thanksgiving. And yet, it was a day full of blessings. The sun was shining and we were together and happy. And the food! Oh, the food. We went a little carb crazy. Jason and I cooked up some of our favorite foods: mashed potatoes, macaroni & cheese, corn, "sausage" dressing, and carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting to share with our friend, Dave. The seating arrangements? Two camping chairs and an exercise ball out on the deck. Jason's face in the big picture above pretty much sums it up. We were deliriously full of gratitude and fatitude. After Dave left to roll himself home, Jason and I attempted to watch Home Alone, but a food -induced coma ensued... I made it to my favorite line: "Look what you did, you little jerk." and I was out, my belly and heart perfectly plump. I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving, too!

Quote by Miranda July

Three Random Videos to Make You Smile

These are all wildly popular videos, especially the first and the third, so you may have already seen them. Jason and I just discovered them recently and thought they were worth sharing on the off chance you haven't already seen them. Just like each of you, they're all AWESOME in their own way. Hope they brighten your day!

I couldn't embed this one, so you'll have to follow the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2BgjH_CtIA

Confessions of a Pogonophile & The Birth of Beard Man or Why Someone Needs to Give Me a Freakin' Job!

You know it's time to get a life (maybe a job? perhaps a friend?) when the idea of charting the growth of your husband's beard sounds like something really fun to do.

It all started back in September when I was debating whether or not to cut my hair. It was getting pretty nappy and I was thinking of going much shorter. I asked Jason his opinion and got the usual response:

"I don't know. Do whatever you want. I think you look beautiful no matter what you do with your hair."

"Yeah, but what do you really think?"

"It really doesn't matter what I think."

"Uhhh, yeah it does. I'm asking you aren't I?"

After several more minutes of pressing and pleading on my part for a freakin' opinion, I finally got it:

"Okay, if you really want to know, I think you look better with long hair."

Wrong answer. He was supposed to say he thought I should cut it short since that's the decision I was leaning towards. I just needed a little encouragement. Why couldn't he see that? It was so obvious!

I sigh a long sigh. "What is it with guys and long hair? Could you be any more shallow?"

Jason, sensing my annoyance, tries to recover with, "No, I just think long hair suits your personality better."

"Whatever."

The truth is I can't say a thing because the way many men feel about women with long luxurious locks is the way I feel about men with big beautiful beards. I mean, can you possibly imagine anything sexier than a beautiful bearded mountain man chopping firewood in a flannel shirt? Well, can you? I know I can't. So, somehow, out of our own shallowness and need to control each other, we came upon an agreement, a sacred pact: For one year, I solemnly swear not to cut my stringy strands and Jason promises friendship to the fruits of his facial follicles. So while I begin my journey towards this:

Do you think my hair will get this long in a year?

Jason strives to become this:

Isn't he cute?

(I can't remember where I found this picture. Sorry Beard Man creator.)

Would you like to know some interesting facts about beards brought to you by Wikipedia? Okay!

• From the dashing Donegal (think Abe Lincoln) to the gorgeous Garibaldi (think Giuseppe) there are many different types and styles of beard. My personal favorite? The neck beard, as sported by the sexy Thoreau below:
• Facial hair growth is stimulated by dihydrotestosterone, which ironically, also promotes balding.
• Pogonophobia is the fear of beards.
• The ancient Greeks, who commonly curled their beards with tongs, saw beards as a sign of virility.
• In ancient India, a long beard was a sign of wisdom. The punishment for adultery? Public beard chopping.

Want to see a photographic presentation of Jason's transformation into Beard Man? Okay!

But still a far cry from RED BEARD:

This guy would scare the begeezus out of a pogonophobic.

I think he couldn't be any sexier.

(Unless he had an axe and a flannel shirt.)

For all you other beardos out there who just can't get enough of manly hairy faces:

http://beardcoach.com/

http://www.beards.org/

http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com

A poem I love.

Hymn by A. R. Ammons

I know if I find you I will have to leave the earth

and go on out

over the sea marshes and the brant in bays

and over the hills of tall hickory

and over the crater lakes and canyons

and on up through the spheres of diminishing air

past the blackset noctilucent clouds

where one wants to stop and look

way past all the light diffusions and bombardments

up farther than the loss of sight

into the unseasonal undifferentiated empty stark

And I know if I find you I will have to stay with the earth

inspecting with thin tools and ground eyes

trusting the microvilli sporangia and simplest

coelenterates

and praying for a nerve cell

with all the soul of my chemical reactions

and going right on down where the eye sees only traces

You are everywhere partial and entire

You are on the inside of everything and on the outside

I walk down the path down the hill where the sweetgum

has begun to ooze spring sap at the cut

and I see how the bark cracks and winds like no other bark

chasmal to my ant-soul running up and down

and if I find you I must go out deep into your

far resolutions

and if I find you I must stay here with the separate leaves

Happy Anniversary Mom & Pops!

Today is my parent's 32nd anniversary.

At least, it is in Australia.

And I hope I'm right about the 32. ??

Hey, Mom & Dad,

Remember that year I felt certain that you had been married 25 years, and then you said,

in your I'm trying to be patient, but you're an idiot voice,

"Tracy. How old are you?"

"Duhh, 26," I replied, annoyed you had to ask.

A couple of minutes go by...

(keep in mind, readers, I'm not a bastard child, nor is my older sister)

"Ohhhhhh!"

(True story.)

Jason and I looked on the internet to see what the gift for Anniversary #32 is: Conveyance.

"Oh, that's nice, you convey something to the other, as in you communicate something, like about how much meaning and beauty your partner has given to your life. That's so swee..."

"It means a car," my thought is interrupted by Jason's insistence on living in the real world. "Or a boat, or a motorcycle...some form of transportation."

"Oh," I said. "Seriously?"

Yeah, I don't know if that was just some kind of yuppy site that was I was looking at or if that's the real deal. I mean, for number 100 they said a 10K diamond is in order. At first I was like, WHAT? 10K DIAMOND? ABSURD! Look, I'm not a fan of diamonds. I'm just not that in to sparkly things, especially sparkly things that are far too often ill-gotten. I don't know much about diamonds, but I know enough to know that 10K's no pebble. But then I actually thought about the practical implications, the reality of two people being married for 100 years. Has that even ever happened? If so, if such a thing doesn't warrant a 10K diamond, than what does? Even if it does cost a little blood, sweat and tears... nay! even better that it cost a little blood sweat and tears. It is actually an incredibly appropriate gift if you think about it. So, maybe a car is an appropriate gift for 32 years of marriage? I considered it. I decided it is in fact. The more I thought about the years of commitment, love, friendship and trust my parents have given each other, the more I thought, "Screw conveying gratitude and emotion! Dadgummit. They deserve a car." I knew that most likely neither of my parents would be giving the other a car. So that's when I took matters in to my own hands, marched myself down to Crown Casino and won them this:

(my parents' NEW CAR!)

Crown is a fancy place. Don't believe me? Just look at these fancy-shmancy lights:

(fancy schmancy lights)

And it should be, I mean, gambling is a classy thing. Am I wrong? Well, if anybody knows her way around a fanciful establishment, it's me. For some strange reason, it makes some people uncomfortable. Not me! Give me frou frou and watch me flourish like crime in Bogota, Columbia. I'm not comfortable at dinner unless I have at least three different kinds of forks in front of me. (And that's for a casual dinner.) All that is to say that I was right in my element. I quickly and easily sweet talked my way into a high stakes poker game in the VIP room, where I proceeded to win my parents a sweet-ass convertible for their anniversary and make grown men cry. No big deal. Everybody up there suspects I'm some sort of Rain Man. Anyway, I'm having it shipped to you, Mom & Dad. You'll just need to have the steering wheel and what-not switched over and then she'll be good to go!

Noooo. Almost none of that was true.

BUT! I did make you this pretty flower collage:

FAIL BLOG

I am not one of those super determined people. You know the ones I'm talking about, who are always setting goals and reaching them. If they say they're going to do something, you know it's going to get done. Let me just reiterate: I am not one of those people. Really, I'm not even one of those slightly determined people. I can hear my Dad now, "Uhhh, tell us something we don't know." Well, Dad, for your information, this portion of the post is for the two people who follow my blog who do not already know me. Okay? Now, where was I? Oh yes, I'm an all-star loafer, through and through. In the spirit of sharing things about myself, I'm going to let you in on my motto, my life's philosophy, straight from the goodinyou gospel...It also just so happens to be the greatest song ever written, and it goes like this:

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.

Every once in a while though, in this dream, along the stream, for reasons unbeknownst to me, I do something crazy. I come down with a case of determination. Determiwhat? I know. I told you it was crazy. Here I am rowing along merrily, dee, dee, dee, life is but a dream... And then I have to go and set a goal and ruin EVERYTHING...

As you may have read in a previous post, Jason and I challenged ourselves to go vegan for the month of November in honor of it being World Vegan Month and citing environmental reasons, blah, blah, blah. I really was determined to do it. Well, let me tell you, we failed. We failed miserably. The reason?

CHEESE. Meat? Forget about it. Milk in its fresher form? Ehh, I can take it or leave it. Eggs? They're pretty creepy anyway. But Cheese?! I would say going without it was hard, but that would be the biggest understatement of all time. It was excruciating. Life is but a dream? Try a nightmare. I think it had been maybe five days before we broke down. We could have simply nibbled a little cheese cracker to fight off the shakes or munched a meager morsel of mozzarella to stop the cold sweat. But that would have been far too sensible. Instead, we ordered an extra large, extra cheese pizza. Failure never tasted so good. And while it felt soooo right to have the cheese grease running down our faces, we said to ourselves, (after we had finished every last piece mind you) no, we can do better. Determined, we picked ourselves up by our cheese-caked bootstraps, and tried again. Six long, rice and nut-filled, god forsaken days later, on the morning of November 12th, I woke up, and I knew what I had to do. I thought, you know, I may not have it all figured out, and by it, I mean anything, but wait a minute, gosh darnit, I do know this thing, this one beautiful thing. As I sat up, the thought sprinted to my vocal chords, and before I could even get a grip on what was happening, I found myself shouting at the very top of my lungs:

"I LOVE CHEESE!!!!!"

If I knew how to get up there, I swear I would have shouted it from the rooftop. How's that for determination?

Jason didn't need much persuading. It was my stupid idea in the first place. And besides, he goes along with what I say most of the time because I let him get frisky with me in the boat sometimes. So, we proceeded to make and devour an entire pot full of homemade mac n cheese. Failure? Yes. But it was creamy, delicious failure. I'm sorry environment, I really do love you, which is why I recycle, which is why I'm a vegetarian, which is why I will never, not ever drive a Hummer. But, when it comes to cheese, if eating it is wrong, I don't want to be right.

So there you have it. What was I thinking setting an unattainable goal like that? What can I say, I lost sight of who I am and almost overexerted myself in the process. Pheww. It was a close one, but in the end I learned something valuable about myself: I cannot live without cheese. And now I feel more determination than ever, to eat as much of it as I possibly can. I think I feel about cheese the way Pooh must feel about honey. And so, in honor of Pooh, who, by the way is my all-time favorite character (see, you're learning all kinds of things about me) I wrote a silly little haikuish song to express my love for cheese:

Like milk from a tit,
Time changes all things.
Behold the power of cheese.

(Except, I don't think Pooh would say tit, not in front of the kids.)

God forbid I should ever develop a lactose intolerance. Amen. Now go eat some CHEESE!

Our default:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/stove-top-mac-n-cheese-recipe/index.html

Or, if you want to be really naughty, try this recipe:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103667636

that got all the npr listening health freaks' panties in a wad. Read some of the comments--they're hilarious. My personal favorite? "This recipe is child abuse!" Clearly, this person needs to eat more cheese, get a boat, and chill out on the stream for awhile.

all which isn't singing is mere talking: in praise of ee cummings, silliness, and spring!

when more than was lost has been found has been found
and having is giving and giving is living-
but keeping is darkness and winter and cringing
-it's spring(all our night becomes day)o,it's spring!
all the pretty birds dive to the heart of the sky
all the little fish climb through the mind of the sea
(all the mountains are dancing;are dancing)

(from when faces called flowers float out of the ground by ee cummings)

i love ee cummings almost as much as i love spring. and i love spring almost as much as i love silliness. so when they all come together, i get this warmth! a tiny ticklish feeling in my heart and a smile that spreads on my face like vegemite on toast. eww. better make it peanut butter. that's much better. i read once that he wrote his first poem when he was three and that it goes like this: "Oh little birdie oh oh oh, With your toe toe toe."

and anyway my point is that everybody knows that spring is a time for silliness. ee cummings knew it. the flowers know it. the birds, too. i've seen some birds doing some pretty silly things lately, like the one in the gardens just the other day who sat real still for a long long time, only moving to cock his head slightly as he stared at the red red roses above. and then i swear, he did a little jig! and disappeared into the sky. i know it isn't Spring where you are, but it can be spring in your heart whenever you want it to be, right? and besides, since when do you need an excuse to act silly? whoever reads this, please do something silly.

since the thing perhaps is to eat flowers

and not to be afraid.

(from the ee cummings poem, voices to voices, lip to lip)