How I Spent My Time During the Days of Nov. 22nd to Nov. 26th (Some Call it Thanksgiving Weekend)

For the first time in awhile I actually left the warm confines of LA for Thanksgiving. Since I am going to Maine for Christmas, I went to Ohio to spend time with my Dad, Ben I. and Jaime, and of course Evie and Moira. Here's a little breakdown of how things went.

Lesson #1: When your 70+ British taxi driver asks you if you are in the medical profession there is no correct answer. Either answer will result in you stuck listening to him go on about how he has problems with his bowels and how he finally got some medicine for it, but the problem is that the medicine he's taking is now leading to a burning sensation in his groin that makes sitting very difficult. Even though I answered his first question with a "no," he still asks for my advice. My advice: "Man, I don't know. Try a different medicine?" (Read the previous line in your best Dal voice for the best effect.) Thankfully, he took that as wise advice and changed the subject to some cute blond he took to the airport earlier.

Lesson #2: If you are flying out of LAX the weekend of Thanksgiving, the best time to arrive is Wednesday around 10 am. I've left at numerous times for Thanksgiving and it's usually always resulted in an hour plus wait just to get through security. Wed. at 10 am it took my twenty minutes from being dropped off to sitting at my gate.

It might have had something to do with me flying on Continental, who deserve "big ups!" for not charging me for lunch or headphones. This was one of the best flights I've ever had. Well, except for the tubby I was sitting next to that had no concept of personal space. At this point though I now expect to always sit next to this person. Am I the only one that sizes up the people waiting to board and ranks them in order of who I want to sit next to? I have never sat next to number one on my list. Number one on my list this time was Jaclyn Smith. She still looks fantastic. No, I didn't get to sit next to her.

Weather in Ohio is always a crapshoot. You really have no idea what you are going to get from one day to the next. Thankfully, it was unseasonably warm for the two days I was there. It was nice having two days of that perfect autumn weather.

Ben, Jaime, and the girls couldn't come till Friday, so Thursday was basically all comfort food (grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, etc.) and football. A perfect lazy day.

So Friday was our Thanksgiving. Dad cooked up the family standard duck, stuffing, biscuits, etc. The rest of the evening was spent playing restaurant and Legos. The big bombshell of the evening though was when Evie stated that she no longer liked the color green. Green has been Evie's color of choice for a long time. Green was such a favorite of Evie's that nearly every Christmas gift she got last year came in the color green. Her new favorites are purple and pink. The rest of the family should really take note of this. Green seems to no longer be a color choice for Evie.

Saturday I flew home. America West could learn a few things from Continental. Is there a more depressing airport than Las Vegas? Detroit comes close.

The rest of the long weekend was spent seeing Deja Vu with Bobby. Bobby liked it more than I did, but it's a well executed sci-fi action film. Very enjoyable.

So Christmas is now coming down the pipe. This means Christmas shopping in between research questions, and putting up the little Christmas tree I took down only three months ago. Sigh.