Be thankful for the end of the year

This time of year is the time when we pause to give thanks. Often times with the hectic pace of our daily lives we take what we have for granted and the ever-extending Christmas shopping season doesn't do much to aid us in appreciating what we have. Instead, we are fixated on what we want/"need" but that rabid consumerism is what makes the world go round and what lines my pockets so who am I to complain?

Instead, I have actually taken time to think about what we have and how lucky we are to have the things we need. This is especially important given the events of yesterday but we've always had a certain amount of luck on our side.

To illustrate that luck, here are some examples. When my old lady was pregnant we were told that the level of fluid in our daughter's kidneys was low (or high, I don't even remember now) and that we needed to head to the Mayo Clinic for a more involved ultrasound. As I assumed, it was just overly cautious medicine at work and nothing was wrong. Another fine example was my old lady falling in to a job just after graduating college. Sure, it has absolutely nothing to do with her degree but it has provided for her and us and her boss greatly appreciates her work. It's more than many people can say.

But back to appreciating what we have. We are both gainfully employed. Sure, I've suffered a setback or two in the past year or so and my old lady is facing some uncertainties but we're proactive and we've survived. We have made it through another year and while every day has had some sort of challenge lurking around the corner we've paid most of our bills, done some small improvements around the homestead and even managed to buy a new ride so we can more easily wrangle the toddler in and out of the back seat. I have long been anti-SUV but this is a crossover so don't call me a hypocrite.

We know that things are looking up. Every job seems to be facing a certain amount of uncertainty but if you add value to what you do by doing more and teaching yourself valuable lessons and skills that can bring more to your duties then you are being proactive and that alone should give you a certain amount of comfort. So, in the final days of the year, pause for a moment and take stock. Be thankful if you have a roof over your head, warm clothes and a full stomach. And now for the part that makes me a hypocrite, be thankful if you have a job that pays your bills. Be thankful for family and friends and be thankful that this sappiness is done.

And don't forget to show some appreciation for the gift that is MinnPics. I do the work to find you amazing photos from across Minnesota and all you ahve to do is pause to look at them. What a deal!

The ultimate Thanksgiving food guide

The best ideas are stolen but if you combine a whole bunch of ideas you are aggregating them and that's totally cool. SO without further ado it's time for the ultimate Thanksgiving food guide.

Pumpkin pie:

the canned pumpkin was more charismatic in flavor and hue

I can attest to this. I grew up in a frugal (cheap) home and my mom grew one of everything in her expansive garden on the farm. The most intriguing (to her, anyway) was her bumper crop one year of pie pumpkins. They're relatively dainty next to their Jack-o-Lantern counterparts and are bred for baking. (Trust me, the pumpkin from your typical Jack-o-Lantern tastes as close to shit as I are to venture). My bakin'-fool mom cooked up a few of the round pumpkins and scooped out the good stuff and made a couple pies. Now if you've read my Twitter bio you know I claim to be a lover of pies. Well these home-brewed creations nearly ruined me. They were simply disappointing and at the ripe old age of eight I swore off home-grown pie pumpkins as did my mom. Really, what's easier - baking up a pumpkin which you've scooped free of seeds or opening a can? Winner: can.

Vegetables:

the green bean casserole was a mushy, revolting mess

As far as Thanksgiving vegetables go, they tend to get the short end of the stick. When was the last time somebody jumped out of their chair and shouted "Damn, that sweet corn was so good I almost pissed myself"? It's because vegetables, while tasty, are largely just a side dish. They don't get the pre- or post-preparation attention that the turkey gets. And some people do horrible things to their vegetables. They scallop the corn, they casserole the green beans and they put - gasp - marshmallows on the candied sweet potatoes. Now as far as vegetables go I am a huge fan of candied sweet potatoes. We have them probably once a month and they're so good that you'd mess yourself but sorry, you can't have my recipe. Stick with the tried and true veggies: sweet corn and sweet potatoes.

Gravy:

don't put it on everything, it smells like it's burned

That was the warning uttered plenty loud for everyone in the room to hear a couple years ago at my in-laws' Thanksgiving dinner but my brother-in-law still went ahead with covering every inch of his plate with the obviously burnt gravy. The problem was that it was homemade and in the rush to prepare everything else the gravy got neglected. It happens but it doens't need to. The simpler options include powder puuch mixes, canned gravy and jarred gravy. Sure, it doesn't always taste like homemade but when homemade tastes like a tire fire homemade may not be the best standard by which to judge.

I won't venture in to turkey territory because I have yet to perfect the poultry side of the meal. My turkey typically turns out a bit on the dry side even with stuffing half of a stick of margarine under the breast skin of the bird and basting the Jennie-O every thirty minutes. It also needs more salt than I typically shake on. But in the end it's still more than edible. Now if anyone has a killer pie crust recipe and secrets for rolling it out to perfection, drop it in the comments.

I know that basically nobody besides myself will be near a computer for the next few days but that doesn't mean you can't take a break and check out MinnPics. This long weekend should be interesting.

Christmas comes AFTER Thanksgiving

It's apparently Christmas. I found this out yesterday as I sprinted through the local Target store for a bag of cat food. I realized it was Christmas yesterday, November 2nd, because Christmas had relentlessly vomited across from the general area of the pet supplies. Christmas had vomited so much, in fact, that it was running in to the area where the Halloween candy and remaining costumes had been relegated to. I knew it was coming because after the back-to-school supplies disappeared in the second week of September a back-wall aisle popped up entirely full of Christmas goods.

Yes, Christmas had in fact been lurking inside the walls of Target since early September and I hate that.

It's not that I hate Christmas. Entirely the opposite, in fact. I love Christmas. My house is that house during the month of December. I deck it out classily in white Christmas lights and a Santa's Village scene because it makes kids smile and I don't mind freezing my ass off dragging all of that stuff out from the basement each year. I just don't display all of my Santa-riffic goodnes suntil an appropriate time. The day after Thanksgiving. In case retailers and shoppers everywhere have forgotten, Thanksgiving celebrates the day that the pilgrims and Native Americans sat down and shared a bountiful meal in celebration of the year's harvest. We celebrate it on the final Thursday of November. Then the next day we feverishly plow full-on in to Christmas mere hours later but at least Thanksgiving gets its moment in the spotlight.

Well, at least it used to. I can understand and even tolerate retailers having Christmas displays up shortly after Halloween. It's big business and those advertising dollars that retailers spend keep my bills paid. But if we can find time to recognize such stupid crap as Administrative Professionals Day then Thanksgiving deserves its own space and time without being whored up by the commercialism that is Christmas.

That means no Christmas music - no matter what - before Thanksgiving dinner is over.
Don't turn your Christmas lights on until the day after Thanksgiving.
Decorate the inside of your house whenever you damn well please but be aware that others will ridicule you for having garland and tinsel adorning your home on November 10th.
Keep indoor Christmas decor away from windows visible from outdoors until after Thanksgiving.
Turn off outdoor and dismantle indoor Christmas displays by January 2nd. A grace period of three days is available if you partied like it was 1999 on New Year's Eve.

All I'm saying is that holidays don't overlap. Keep them separate and if KOOL 108 or Lite FM start spinning Christmas music this year before Thanksgiving is over I am going to drive to their respective studios (closets with a computer inside) and smash that Christmas computer into tiny bits fit for decorating the station's Christmas tree.

I also promise to keep MinnPics seasonally appropriate. The photos of Minnesota will always be pleasant and compelling and rarely induce anger.

A Thanksgiving tale

If my calendar isn't lying to me (again) I am correct in saying that tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Now I could go two ways here. Down road 'A' I could regale you with some sentimental tale about how great Thanksgiving is with seeing family members and having a jolly time over a tasty, filling meal. If I trek down road 'B', I could take a drastically different path and give it to you straight, carefully and tediously explaining why it is that you only see some of these people once a year and why families are great but only because after you eat (particularly if the feast is at someone else's house) you can promptly leave before things get uglier.

Being that I am who I am, I'm gonna give it to you straight as I sit here enjoying a few deep gulps from the perfectly chilled bottle of Schlitz Malt Liquor in preparation for one mind-numbingly long day of work before the painfully long Thanksgiving day. Damn, I love malt liquor. It's a sort of truth serum.

We all know how road 'B' will treat us. We'll pack up the old car about 30 minutes before we need to leave for our destination. In our minds, we know that this will leave us plenty of time but something will happen. It might be a bowl of Jell-O dessert tipping over in the back seat and spilling all over the carefully manicured leather because someone forgot to snap the lid on all the way or maybe the tire that was just a bit low the day before has now gone flat but someway, somehow, that 30 minute buffer is gonna get chewed up real quick. That's why you stashed a couple additional forties of Schlitz in the trunk because this is God's way of telling you that this day is going nowhere but downhill.

Finally, an hour after you had initially planned to hit the road, you finally get to pull out of the driveway as you and your significant other banter back and forth, verbally checking items off because neither of you could be bothered to actually write a simple list on something appropriate like the torn up remains from a case of beer. Five miles down the road it dawns on you that you forgot your billfold. Blowing it off is easier than adding another ten of fifteen minutes to your trip which is already behind schedule by an hour. What could happen?

Twenty minutes later, it happens. As you were speeding (who actually gets pulled over for doing 85 in a 55?) to make up time from the earlier incidents, you happen to meet a mount me-hat-wearing state trooper. Hoping he didn't notice your bright red car, you forge ahead but it's too late, the dutiful trooper is fast approaching from behind you with his lights swirling. Knowing that he's after nobody but you, you pull over to the gravel shoulder of the road and power down your window.

As he asks for your license and proof of insurance, you realize that it might have been a good idea to add ten more minutes to your trip and grab that wallet you left sitting inside the refrigerator. The trooper, feeling the spirit of Thanksgiving, understands your situation and cuts you a break. The combined fines for speeding, no proof of insurance and no license only total $545 but he sends you on your way as he checks out your wife's cleavage. Pervert.

As you pull away, you break into an argument with your wife asking her in a loud but controlled manner why she didn't push the girls up a bit more and try to knock the fine down a bit. A hushed silence falls for the rest of the trek.

Finally, only 85 minutes late, you and your wife arrive at Aunt Mildred and Uncle Bert's house which has been in a perpetual state of remodeling for about 20 years for that oh-so-important Thanksgiving dinner.

Oddly, the kitchen, as you walk through it, smells like smoke and their indoor-only German Shepherd is perched with his front paws up on the 50s-era chrome and laminate table in the middle of the kitchen lapping feverishly at the dishes strewn about. Wrinkly Aunt Mildred leans against the counter, sucking on a Virginia Slim as she dashes in for a hug. Normally, a hug isn't bad but Aunt Mildred favors herself as a "hot mama" and as she hugs you for an uncomfortable amount of time, she presses he wrinkly fun bags against you and gooses you square on the ass. While this is taking place, you notice Uncle Bert is giving your wife a shoulder rub that he has every intention of moving to the pantry if you know what I mean.

Making a quick retreat, you dash out the door and run towards the car. Fumbling the keys, you pop the trunk and retrieve that bag of forties you stashed there a couple hours prior. Twisting the cap, you bring the bottle and its contents to your mouth and swig down a third of it without breathing. God, this day is gonna suck but at least there's free food.

Feeling somewhat refreshed, you sprint inside to grab one of the better folding chairs and a TV tray that isn't rusty and wait, avoiding human interaction, for the food.

Noticing that there is some loud activity at a table in the corner of the living room, you saunter over there and see the group of middle-aged folks talking loudly and slamming back shots of some dark liquid resembling motor oil. Knowing that things can't get much worse, you pull up a chair and join in. As they play "I never" you realize that your Aunt Martha is a huge fan of anal and your Uncle Mack once participated in a gay orgy in a church basement. It was also revealed that, after you wife joined in the fun, she once sprinted naked through an area park in high school. Suddenly, you realize that there is nobody normal in this family and as you face begins to feel extremely numb, the call for dinner rings out from the kitchen.

Not caring that Snuggles the German Shepherd had tongue-bathed every dish in the house, you load up your semi-clean plate with tasty vittles in a vain attempt to soak up the vast quantities of alcohol calling your belly home. Your wife looks at you and whispers, asking how drunk you actually are in a rather slurred tone of her own.

Sitting at the table instead of the less rusty TV tray you had earlier staked out, you start up swilling various forms of booze with the increasingly rowdy crowd that has plenty of sexual skeletons stashed firmly in their closets. As you alternately toss back shots and choke down the dry turkey while slathering it with burned gravy, your wife starts feeling frisky and is just short of fondling you as she sits to the right of you. Aunt Mildred, sitting across the table from you, has decided to play footsie with you and the probably bisexual Uncle Mack on your left is obviously fond of sitting next to you as shown by the tent being pitched in his nearly transparent Zubaz.

After enduring all forms of advancements for nearly an hour, you slide your chair back and stumble away from the table and exit the kitchen door towards your car. Again, you pop the trunk and grab both forties from the paper bag. Climbing into the back seat, you lay back against your balled up sweatshirt and nurse the first bottle as the combination of booze and food sets in and the loud arguments from inside the house, of which you occasionally hear the words "slut" and "dumbass" lull you off to dreamland. Ah, only four more hours until you leave behind the only area of the state to have a radio station that plays Christmas polka tunes.

Well, that forty is drained. Hope you enjoyed this haunting turkey day tale. See y'all on the flip side. Happy Thanksgiving.