The Funniest Thanksgiving Yet

Oh. Man.  Thanksgiving.

This is the first year that Mr. and I have been married for the holidays, which doesn't change much for us but really just means that our respective families will now see each other more often during this time of year than they did before.  It also means that as they get more comfortable around each other the filters start to fail- you know, that thing your brain does to keep you from saying stupid crap when you are around new people that you want to impress and then when you get comfortable it stops working.  Hilarity ensues.

This year Mr.'s family hosted Thanksgiving dinner (or I should really call it Thanksgiving lunch because we ate at 1pm) at their home and they did most of the heavy cooking.  The rest of us brought rolls, side dishes, etc which I loved because I didn't have to spend hours cooking.  I was so excited to dig into my favorite foods and relax with my now large family.

The food was amazing (as always) and I did a pretty good job and keeping my portions under control so I could taste everything without being overly stuffed- something I'm very proud of, thankyouverymuch.  It's taken me almost 30 years to figure out how to not be in pain from gorging myself on Thanksgiving, what can I say?  Anyhow, so our fabulous meal was under way and small conversations around the table being had and somehow we ended up being regaled by tales from Nana (Nana is Mr.'s paternal grandmother).

Here's the thing, I have NO IDEA how this conversation started, probably because I was having my own conversations at the other end of the table, but all of a sudden Nana bursts out saying, "I do coke anywhere!  Sometimes you just need a little pick me up. When I'm tired or had a hard day I do some coke and have some candy."

SILENCE from the rest of the table.  Meanwhile I'm busting up.

Of course, Mr. and I know that Nana is referring to Coca-Cola, which is her beverage of choice and which she once told me while offering me an ice cold can, "I do almost all of my Coke in the car!".  Sometimes one's choice of verb is very important, especially when certain nouns are used.  Because it would be absurd to say, "I always have a Coke when I'm in the car," or "I will have a Coke anytime!".

She then proceeds to say, "Should I tell them what we're going to do?  Ok!  We're going to get some medical marijuana!  I was talking to my hairdresser whose boyfriend is going to start a dispensary- but right now I guess he is just a dealer since it used to not be legal- but we were talking about how it might be good for [my husband] (sic).  And did you know that now it comes in little balls, not in dime bags?  And you have to use a pipe or a bong... we used to just get it in little cigarettes- not that I did it but once or twice. And when you put it in the pipe you have to light it EACH TIME (as she mimes how to correctly light a pipe and take a hit, and then hold it in)!"

My end of the table erupted in hysterical laughter and chatter while I'm pretty sure Mr.'s mother had a complete meltdown in her own head.  The rest of the afternoon was spent telling thinly veiled pot and coke jokes (because we are SO GROWN UP!) and snacking on left overs.

I seriously wish all holidays were like this because I was sore from laughing so hard by the end of it all.   But really I am very thankful for my family (now much extended) and for Mr. who makes my life infinitely better every single day.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

When You Grow Up

When you grow up, sometimes you realize you have really crappy friends and probably should make some new ones.  For serious.

This has been a pretty abrupt realization and it makes me a little frustrated but also sort of relieves me of  exhausting myself trying to make relationships work that aren't really worth my time.  At the start of it all I had to eliminate some "friends" that I realized weren't being very good friends to me and were just using our relationship to their benefit without actually being interested in the relationship itself.  That was a sad moment, and after I was over the hurt of it I began paying closer attention to the other relationships in my life.  You see, I think I got caught up (as I should have) in having the best relationship I've had in my life with Mr and sort of assumed that my friendships would elevate the way the rest of my life has, but that has not been the case.

I found when examining those relationships that I was starting to question that I was letting myself be fooled- by the people themselves or by my own optimistic outlook on those people and the friendship I've given them.  I'm far from perfect, but I would count myself a good and faithful friend.  Apparently some people will take that for granted, and thusly I need to rid myself of that.  It is quite a shame because some of them happen to be married to/in a relationship with awesome people that I'd prefer to stay close with so some are going to have to remain in a precarious balance until something happens one way or the other.  However the others I've decided are out- for my own good.  What use is it trying to be a good friend to someone who doesn't want your friendship or doesn't care enough to reciprocate.

On the opposite side of the coin I've reflected on the relationships that mean the most to me.  I am blessed to know some truly amazing people and have some unexpected friendships that mean more to me than I originally thought they would (if that makes any sense at all).  So all hope is not lost.  Sometimes you must turn the corner and loose sight of the old, but what lies ahead is so much more promising.

When you grow up these things are a lot less traumatizing.

What Happens in Vegas...

Definitely does not stay in Vegas.

(Also, hey everyone! )

So there was this thing last week where I was responsible for a big meeting for work in Las Vegas which I was confident I could totally handle, and did handle, and most everything went smoothly until everyone started getting sick.  It started at the beginning of the week when a couple people had some congestion and slightly sore throats. I thought, "no big deal, just get some throat lozenges and DayQuil and we will be fine." But by the end of the week I had lost 4 people to some weird cold who had to go home early and then on the way home when the folks who didn't catch the death cold caught THE STOMACH FLU.  Don't worry, I won't be super graphic here.

I happened to be one of the unlucky stomach-flu catchers.  It was rough.  Mostly I'm just glad that the majority of people made it from Las Vegas back to Portland and were safely home before feeling the symptoms (including myself).

Here's how it went down.  Friday came and most of us had morning activity planned before we left Vegas.  I had a massage which was much needed and then ran some errands before I headed to the airport.  I was feeling pretty tired and out of it, but that didn't phase me since I'd worked some long hours the previous couple days.  A lot of us from the meeting were on the same flight home to Portland so I met up with most of them before we boarded the plane.  I sat, read my eBook, and we landed.  I still felt a little tired and started feeling a bit head achy, but chalked it up to having not eaten enough or had enough water during the day.  I made my way to baggage claim and stood with coworkers who informed me that one of our other coworkers thought he had food poisoning because he started to get very ill on the plane.  We speculated what we thought he could've eaten (midnight burger run in Vegas, we assumed) and didn't think more of it.

I headed home ready to hang out with the Mr. and our puppies.  I was so glad to be home!  I neglected most of my unpacking, ate a quick dinner and hung out on the couch for most of the night.  I went to bed still feeling head achy but figured I just needed some rest.  I slept pretty soundly for most of the night and then around 6 am or so I woke up with a POUNDING headache, far worse than any I've had in quite some time.  I sipped some water and made myself go back to sleep.  Mr. got up to make breakfast around 7:30am and asked if I wanted anything.  I rolled over and the mere mention of food made me feel sick... and then I realized that I just felt sick in general.  Quietly I let him know I was staying in bed and not to make me breakfast and then I drifted back to sleep.  About an hour later I woke up and knew I needed to make a run for it to make it to the bathroom.  My stomach wasn't terribly achy, but my body made it pretty clear that there was an urgency to empty my bowels which it did for pretty much the rest of the morning.

I wore a pretty good track in the floor between my bed and the bathroom that morning and would fall right back asleep after each bout.  As the day SLOWLY progressed I felt worse and worse.  I ached all over and my headache was blindingly agonizing but I was afraid to take anything for fear that I would just throw it up. I sipped water and slept uncomfortably from about 10am to 4 or 5pm.  I finally did get out of bed as Mr was heading out to a BBQ (don't feel bad, he totally had my blessing to get out of that sick house!) and made my way to the couch downstairs where I could more easily watch movies and TV on Demand.

You know I'm sick when a food commercial is on and I immediately have to change the channel because even the sight of food made me feel awful.  Around 6:30pm I decided that I was tired of being sick and smelly so I took a hot shower and put clean sweats on before climbing right back into my spot on the couch.  The shower helped a little with my achy body, but I still felt like hell.  Poor Mr came home and had stopped and bought himself a "proper" dinner at Carl's Jr, the scent of which sent me running upstairs to escape.  I went to bed debating on whether or not to go to urgent care because my head hurt that bad, but then I didn't want to get into a car where it would be bumpy and noisy so I opted to just stay in bed.

I woke up feeling 10 times better on Sunday, but still a little weak and dehydrated so I took it pretty easy.  Upon arriving to work on Monday I found that the majority of my coworkers had caught the same awful bug that I had, but many of them weren't sitting on the toilet like me and had an even worse set of problems.  I felt pretty lucky to get by with what I suffered.

So this is a week where we all try to catch up and also try to take it easy because man, that bug will take it out of you.  On the bright side, it was my jump start detox before the holidays so I'm trying to only introduce healthier foods and liquids back into my daily routine.