Making my list

And checking it twice.

Bowling pins - check!

All I have left is the turkey.

There is the cleaning and massive amounts of food, but the important things are in the trunk of my car. I might also mention that I got 10 used bowling pins for $5.03 at the local bowling alley. Much cheaper than 10, 3 Liter bottles of cola that have the potential to burst.

Also, thanks to craigslist I am buying a turkey fryer for $25. Woo-hoo!

I think Thanksgiving will be the good holiday this year. I can't even wrap my mind around Christmas. If it is not going to be in Paris or at Disneyland and completely devoid of anything that might bring up sad memories I don't want anything to do with it. I have answers to give people about it, but I just cannot bring myself to make a decision. Instead I have decided to not worry about being over the top and to make Thanksgiving an EXTRAVAGANZA. If it is big enough, maybe I'll still be in a turkey coma at Christmas.

Curses and Chair Breakings

As you may know, the hubs is deep in thesis writing. We are t-minus 2 days until completion. This week the stress level has been amped up as his self-imposed deadline approaches. The last 2 nights we have been playing the Star Trek trivia game my mother gave him a couple of years ago.

The first time we opened the game he said, "These game pieces are not to scale." The game pieces are tiny versions of the first 4 Star Trek ships. Luckily my sister-in-law witnessed his nerdiness so we can bring it up and taunt him mercilessly.

The first time the 3 of us played I won. J then put the game away and declared it stupid. Now, 3 years later it has come out and I failed to live up to the challenge. Our current standings are him 3, me 1. I have to win the next 3 games. It kills me to lose. Especially after I over-thought the winning answer because he GAVE ME A LOOK, so I changed my original answer. Then he changed his answer and WON. It hurts people, it hurts. 

I might also mention tomorrow's double at the restaurant is going to hurt given I stayed up until 3am challenging him to a rematch. 

I also would like to state that I have always publicly defended Voyager because she has female captain and I thought it was important. No more Voyager. You moronic pile of a series no one cares about. And Chacotay? Piece of **** with a MEDICINE BUNDLE IN SPACE? Seriously. You can put Voyager in the photo collage of Jessica's Arch Nemesis. 

Going to bed. 

Things the Hubs Cannot Stand

In no particular order:

Pointy items standing UP in the dishwasher

Possums (one killed his roommate in college)

Things that burst in your mouth

The evil sun

Olives and broccoli

Unfortunately no picture description: Dampness

(particularly of the clothes and the state of being damp)

He is very sweet and I am poking fun at his quirks, so I will also show you...

Here he his teaching my little cousin to tie his tie before Grandmother's funeral.

He is so cute.

Turkey Wrangling

I am determined to have a big, fluffy Thanksgiving this year. The hubs and I have gone a little overboard inviting people. He because he wants to fry turkeys, and I for many reasons some conscious and some unconscious. 

The main dilemma seems to be coming up with a suitable activity to fit the outrageousness that I feel. Personally, turkey wrangling seems to fit the bill. I can see people in jeans chasing a turkey around my backyard falling in the mud, shouting obscenities at the turkey, rolling around laughing, and people cheering from the porch. It's beautiful! 

I was slightly disappointed not to be able to find any pictures of anyone ACTUALLY wrangling turkeys by hand. But apparently, it is not for ordinary folks.

When we lived on our 3rd floor apartment we had the Great Pumpkin Toss of '06 after dinner. 

Ideally we could repeat this, but even if we got on the roof what would we be aiming for? the dumpster in the apartment complex was perfect. Sigh. I have gotten some suggestions, but most lack the OOMPH of fun and unforgettableness that I am trying to achieve. Call me modern, but charades just doesn't do it for me. 

There is a possible option of turkey bowling. One of the local bowling alleys sells old pins 10 for $5. We could do a small turkey or chicken to stay cheap. S and I are still trying to work out the logistics. For example, are the neighbors going to be down with this? It also seems to be mostly in places with hard-packed snow. 

I did find an interesting article here which talks about the various types of turkey bowling. My favorite is the third type of turkey bowling. It reminds me of the hind-and-go-seek we used to play in Walmart in college:

The last and final style is the rogue "Grocery Store Turkey Bowler". This menace to society will set up soda bottles,(or any other bottles he/she can get their hands on) in an empty grocery store isle. This method usually involves an accomplice to watch for store employees, and another to shoot video while the bowler pitches his bird down the makeshift lane. It's not likely you will get a full 10 frames in the store. Usually it's pitch and run before you hear "Security in the frozen meat section".

Apparently Texas has a long history of turkey bowling if you would like to see George Bush turkey bowl while governor you can do so here.  It seems I am just gathering more and more evidence to talk myself into this turkey bowling. :)  I'll let you know how it goes. 

New Cookbook

In an attempt (that lasted until we got sick) to eat a little smidgeon better for dinner, the hubs and I battled it out in Half Price books until we agreed on a cookbook. It is titled, 12 Best Foods Cookbook, and so far has been fun! Although, keep in mind for us anything not Hamburger Helper (which is now banned) is fun.

So, to start off each of us picked a couple of recipes we'd like to try. Naturally I picked the easiest to make recipes and J picked the hardest ones with no broccoli. Sigh. The hubs has a broccoli hatred that comes with an attached rant that will make you want to bury your head in the garden and eat grubs rather than listen to it. So while this cookbook does have broccoli (calm yourself J & George B.), we are skipping that section.

First I tried the Shrimp with Cherry Tomatoes and Feta.

Unfortunately for you guys, I forgot to take the picture while the plate was pretty...

We both thought it was pretty tasty, my only problem was that you CANNOT buy 2 TBSP of feta all by its lonesome. So in order to justify the purchase of feta, we had to use it for the next week and a half.

The special ingredients are my biggest problem in cooking for the two of us. Finding little fun ingredients in small packages is a wild goose hunt. We then end up eating something in different meals every other night. Oh well, what do you do? At least we're not cooking for more than two, so we can get away with a vegetable and a meat most nights since we eat late.