I happen to have an unhealthy obsession with Christmas. Scented candles, trees the size of redwoods, the Harry Connick Jr. Christmas album, you name the annoying red and green thing and I just love it. So naturally I am the type of gal who buys her Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving.
On Saturday, while hopping around Homestead Farm in Poolesville, Maryland, I chose a Christmas tree so large that it took about an hour to saw it down (pre-cut is for pansies!). It was also too wide for the netting machines and had to be tied to the roof of the car by farm hands/Noble prize-winning mechanical engineers. Yes, there were slightly more anorexic looking trees that could have been mine, but I had to choose the one and only obese ball of pine. The portliest most unwieldy tree of all. I think there is still a bird living in it and maybe a few refugee children, but it is now dwelling happily in my living room where unimportant things like the couch used to fit.
Not the tallest tree in the world, but most definitely the fattest. It's shape really reminds me of this girl I went to college with who I kindly called "Meg the Keg."
I basically had to break my door frame to get my round tree in the door. Next year I'll just throw tinsel on a bonsai tree.
Every time I’m in Erie I always make an appointment to get my hair highlighted because it’s so much cheaper than in DC. I swear, the exchange rate when traveling to Erie is better than traveling to some third world country: Two dollar pitchers! Ten cent wings! And a full head of highlights for ninety dollars!
Simply mind-blowing.
In addition to being a fraction of the cost — the girl that does my hair is fantastic! I enter the salon looking like a hot mess/piece of garbage and leave with a spring in my step and a bounce in my walk that wasn’t there before. Who needs Prozac when there are beauty parlors?!
I’ve noticed that when I go out in Erie to a bar, there are three categories of people I come into contact with:
A) people I’ve made out with
B) people who are related to me
C) people who hate me
Sometimes separate, sometimes, all three. (haha — kidding! I don’t hate ANYONE I’ve ever made out with!)
Last night, I may even have discovered a fourth category: people I used to babysit. I noticed a kid I used to watch while we were standing next to each other at the bar so I said, “Hey Brandon! Wow! You’re so grown up! I used to babysit you.”
However, instead of being the cute little boy I remembered, he eyed me lasciviously, said, “Ummm, nooo. You’re lying. You never babysat me…but how YOU doin’?” and then proceeded to attempt pick me up as my husband and girlfriends stood by laughing hysterically.
What I found so hilarious about the situation was that this kid acted as though I had used “I used to babysit you” as my pick up line. As if I thought saying “At some point, I was entrusted to care for you because you were young and I was old” was some genius segway into hitting on a 22-year-old. As if I’d go up to cute strangers and say, “Hey there! I used to change your diapers” as a way to weasel my way into their cheesy Abercrombie jeans. Sheesh.
I guess I’ll keep this in mind for my cougar days, but for now, it just leaves me disturbed!
A typical night out in Erie: You can get sloppy drunk for mere pennies and meet the entire cast of Super Mario Brothers
One of my oldest friends from childhood decided to do the dirty and marry the man she loves. But before she slapped on the ball and chain, I decided to throw her a bachelorette party that would have us drunk and partially naked for 48 hours. Annapolis, Maryland, where the festivities took place, is a perfect town for such a weekend as it is teeming with virile Naval academy gents in spanking white uniforms. The odds are good and the goods aren’t odd.
If I ever grow a third eye and find myself really desperate to get some XY chromosome action, I am thumbing my way to Annapolis where the men are plentiful, patriotic, and very well-groomed. The bachelorette weekend had one of our attendees offering her services as a fluffer, a professional baseball player practicing his striptease for us, and a renewed love for tequila shots and the boys who buy them for you. Unfortunately, we were not arrested for indecent exposure, nor did we spend the night sandwiched between Midshipman, but we got darn close.
The bachelorette party goers take a rest with Captain Bob after mooning half of Annapolis.
Lauren Moore, the bride to be, with some lifelong pals. God bless the United States Navy.
It just so happens that both Stacey and I were reared by lifelong newspapermen. My dad worked at The Washington Post for nearly 40 years and as an editor of the newspaper’s book section since its inception. Wonderful with words and impractical ideas, my dad is pretty darn bad at home repair projects that involve tools other than a pen. If I want something that’s almost broken to be broken beyond repair, he’s the man to call.
When a bat found itself trapped in our dining room years ago, my father donned a getup suitable for space travel, attached several pillowcases to a coat hanger and went after the creature of the night. When our family’s oven ceased to work, he purchased several top-notch freestanding ovens to avoid having ours fixed. And to this day, my mother’s curtains lean drastically to the left because my dad was positive he could hang them better than any “overpriced professional.”
Over the years, I have come to appreciate his desire to right the wrongs with his own hands before crying for help. Sure embracing this life lesson means I have been crushed by air conditioning units and almost sawed off my arm taking down a pesky dogwood, but heck. God gave me two hands and just like my Dad, I am going to accidentally break things with them.
This is the latch that my father kindly put on my door because I'm scared of ghouls. While the lock brings me great peace, the doorframe has seen better days.
Now this is where my Dad shines! Give him a keyboard and some time, and he will create something beautiful without injuring himself or his family.
Since coming to Erie for Thanksgiving, I’ve realized I have the swine flu. Not actually a big deal besides the fact that I’ve probably infected my entire family, my 90-something-grandparents, both mother and father, 23-year-old brother home from college, infant son and husband, and even the family dog.
I think I picked up the virus last week at the park when some little rug rat who looked like he had the Ebola virus ran up and slimed me with his boogery nose. Instead of kicking him away with my boot tip, I made the mistake of wiping him up with a Kleenex (Ugh, I am officially a mother).
However, at my first sign of H1N1, I began taking Oscillococcinum (a mouthful, I know, but a wonderful over-the-counter all natural treatment) and wow — the throbbing headache is now nothing but a dull thud. It’s pretty amazing — we didn’t even get the vaccines and yet still have survived swine!
Either Ocscillo is miraculous…or…I didn’t have the flu in the first place!
Nothing quite says “Happy Thanksgiving” like flesh being ripped to shreds with battle maces and axes.
This year, Resident Evil V was an integral part of our holiday celebration. Literally, from sun-up to well past sun-down, Grey and my brother assumed the aliases of Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar, and waged war against bio-terrorism in a fictional African town. While the rest of my family was clean and dressed (and above ground), the two of them were in their pajamas, eyes glued to the television as they plotted to to steal money off of dead zombies and blow up abandoned buildings.
Pose for a picture? Hell no, we can't remove our eyeballs from the TV screen!
Someone should really write a book for little brown haired girls entitled “Unibrow, Mustache: Story of a Young Brunette.”While I appreciate the fact that my mother didn’t want to turn her ten-year-old into a vain twit, I can’t help but cringe when watching home movies of myself before the tweezer came into my life. My brow was an army of one. I’m surprised casting companies didn’t constantly call me to play a young Freida Kahlo in their new blockbusters, or that small insects didn’t nestle in my bushy brow between flights.
I know it was the eighties and Brooke Shields brows were all the rage but I really wish I had spent my early years with Clara Bow brows and a cigarette holder. Now the curious thing is that I have two hairless moles for parents. Where did genetics go wrong? How did I end up as a gorilla in heels? Luckily, thanks to modern technology, I am now as hair free and aerodynamic as a goldfish.
This is what I looked like before the Tweezerman tweezer entered my world.
And after the tweezer. The doors that have opened for me now that I don't have a wool sweater taped to my forehead.
I happen to love Martha Stewart. Adore. Believe her to be one of the greatest minds our nation has to offer. This is interesting because I am embarrassingly challenged when it comes to domestic greatness. I put cheese in my toaster. I used to keep sweaters in the oven. I will wear a bikini instead of underwear to avoid doing the wash. But still, I keep hope alive. I want to be one of those people who takes three cotton balls and a stalk of celery and creates 500 wedding favors for the most discerning guests. I want to make a Thanksgiving turkey that looks happier dead than alive and whip up potatoes so flawless guests wonder if they might be made of rubber.
And it’s not just me that hopes to live like Martha on this day of thanks. My own father has been watching her instructional Thanksgiving dinner video until his eyeballs bleed. He keeps insisting that he is going to “roll” the turkey this year, as that’s what Martha does and Martha’s turkey is never dry. Has the man ever broken bread with Martha? How does he know this?
One day I will be the kind of girl who hangs handcrafted pumpkins and pilgrims around her house and does not put dairy products in the toaster. I thank Martha for believing I can realize this dream and for bringing my family and friends together on Thanksgiving Day in our quest to create a more magazine-friendly meal.
I look nothing like this when I cook. I'm usually holding a fire extinguisher and crying. But one day, one day!
On this high holy day of thank-yous, I figured you can’t thank someone more important than God. Yeah, I mean, thanks to the pilgrims and Indians for the whole Thanksgiving thing, but this year, even though I’m not what you’d call a religious person, I wanted to thank God because despite some really awful things happening, we have a healthy little baby and the love of our family and friends. All joking aside, we are very lucky.
The last time I sent a direct message to God was before my friend’s wedding this summer when the priest invited the wedding party to go to confession. I went, but it was annoying because instead of just letting us confess our sins the usual way, like, kind of in a stream of consciousness, the priest asked us pointed questions. This was frustrating because I really had specific things I wanted to get off my chest.
This is how it went:
“Have you lied?” Yes, of course.
“Have you had impure thoughts?” Oh yeah.
“Have you stolen?” Yes, if wireless counts.
“Have you gone to church?” Oh hell no.
“Have you had premarital sex?” This one confused me because I wasn’t sure if he meant now or when I was a teenager. I said no because any sex I have is marital and I figured there is a statute of limitations on anything bad I did over five years ago. He gave me a look like, “Sure, lady.”
And then the kicker:
“Have you masturbated?” Uh, seriously? An old guy asking this? Ew.
So instead of being happy I got all my sins off my chest, I just kept thinking how perverted the priest was. (I asked the other bridesmaids and he blindsided everyone with that little doozy by the way, so at least his creepiness wasn’t just reserved for me).
![[del.icio.us]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
![[Digg]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/digg.png)
![[Facebook]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/facebook.png)
![[Google]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/google.png)
![[LinkedIn]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/linkedin.png)
![[Technorati]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/technorati.png)
![[Twitter]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/twitter.png)
![[Yahoo!]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/yahoo.png)
![[Email]](http://nakedthanks.com/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/email.png)
