Thanksgiving in Evansville

 This was my weekend! 

Perfect Food - I should mention that I made this beautiful Apple pie and it was delicious.

There was food.  Tons and tons of food.  I ate all the time.  I went to Evansville with Ems and Z to visit Ems parents for Thanksgiving weekend.  Her mom fed us all of the time.  She was always in the kitchen cooking and making breakfast or lunch or dinner or a snack.  Then she would be doing the dishes from some scrumptious meal.  I was happy.

I have never spent Thanksgiving with anyone other than immediate family.  This felt the same.  Except....better.  Everyone got along and co-existed well.  It was like we were always on the same page.  We knew when it was time to talk, when it was time to be quiet, when it was time to walk the dog and when it was time to play a game.  My family holidays were never this serene.  There was always some tension in the room or some bad feeling.  I don't remember ever having such a relaxed and stress free holiday weekend (sorry Lou).

We played Rock Band sometimes and Mexican Train Domino's sometimes and watched Football sometimes.  The weekend was all about relaxation and doing as we wished.  We went to see the newest Harry Potter movie and also went to see the special holiday light display.  There was talk about visiting the circus but what idea was quickly and quietly veto'ed.

I had a suitcase.  A L-A-R-G-E suitcase.  I like to have lots of options when I travel.  I realized something important about myself on this trip.  I don't like to decide what I am going to wear in advance.  What if I don't feel like wearing that t-shirt on Saturday.  What if I am cold or hot or want to dress up.  So I pack options.  Plus I don't like to wear clothes more than once.  If I wore a pair of pants all day Friday I don't want to wear them again on Saturday.  They are dirty!  So I had a large suitcase and it was filled.  Um....it was the size of both of my companions suitcases put together.  So I have a quirk.  Ok...this is one of many quirks but still...love me for my quirk.

Ems father has a big wooden block in his back yard for hatchet throwing, BB Gun and Crossbow shooting.  I was immediately intrigued.  The first time I visited I mentioned about four times how much I would like to throw the hatchets but no one ever really got the hint.  I made sure they understood my desire to play with these toys on this trip.  Ems dad thought I should start with the BB gun.  Whoop!!!!

 Look at me holding the gun all serous.  I was trying to aim at this tiny little target about fifteen feet away.

 He taught me how to put the safety on the gun as well as load it with a round of six pellets.  It took about two times but I understood the concept.  I aimed and fired.  And fired and fired.  Bam...I felt a pellet hit me in the stomach...then in the leg...then I heard them fall behind me into the leaves.

 I figured out that the pellets were ricocheting off the wood and back towards my body.  I decided if they were hitting me then I was hitting the target fairly square.  Do you notice the addition of safety glasses to my outfit.  Apparently someone was worried that I would "shoot my eye out".  W.  I kept shooting the rounds and I kept getting better and better.  I noticed that most of the dents in the wood were directly above the target so I made one final correction and I was on track.  I hit the paper target with with every pellet from my final round of ammo.  AWESOME!  I should mention that this was the first time that I have every shot any sort of gun or even held one.  Woot!

The second to last round of ammo got stuck in the chamber so Ems dad had to come back and get it unstuck for me.  Oops.  I think it was just a bad round and not a user error;)

When I was done with the six rounds of ammo he brought out the best toy ever.  The crossbow.  I have never held anything like it before.  It was awesome.  The rear sight was broke off the bow but I still had great aim.  I guess I have natural long distance eyesight because I got most of my arrows in the target and not just in the wood.  I really enjoyed this activity.  It felt good to learn something new.  I should mention that Ems dad wouldn't let me load the crossbow.  Apparently, he was afraid that I would somehow shoot a bow in my hand and require a trip to the hospital.  I was just happy that he was patient and stood there while I played with his toy.

Look at that!  This was on my third round of arrows.  It is so close to the blue triangle.  So close.  Perhaps next time I will make it in the center.

After being around my two good friends four days in a row if felt lonely when I came home.  My house was so empty and there was no one to talk to.  That feeling cements the fact that it was a super awesome weekend with super awesome people.  I love having friends that understand me and I understand them and we can all get along so well.  I couldn't think of a better way to spend four days.  Ok...one little thing was missing.  But she will come out again in the spring.

New Gym

A month ago I was able to get a free 30 day trial membership to a gym near my work.  I have a couple friends who utilize their facility as well as several co-workers.  My free membership was expiring this week so I decided to officially join tonight after my workout. 

Let me start by saying that I really HATE salespeople.  I often find them smarmy and not genuine.  I remember going to buy a car one time and telling my brother in advance that I wasn't going to talk to the salesperson.  It was his job to ask all of the questions and talk because I knew the salesperson would annoy me.  He did.

This particular gym has an entire staff of sales people in charge of getting new members and they are everything I dislike about salespeople.  I took a deep breath before I began this transaction but it didn't take long before it went downhill.


As we were walking to his office he looked at me and asked me when was the last time I worked out.  I gave him a blank stare and said that I didn't understand the question.  I didn't understand the question because I was wearing my bike shorts and athletic shirt and I just finished a 60 minute spinning class and 30 minutes of running and walking intervals.  I LOOKED like I just finished working out.  My hair was all wet from sweat and very messy.  My cheeks were pink from exertion and I was carrying a bag of my street clothes.  So...stupid or just unobservant?


I glossed over that question and we moved forward.  At one point he displayed the website that shows their extra fee services.  There was a listing of three classes.

1.  Team Boot Camp
2.  Team Fitness
3.  Team Weight Loss

He looked at the list and then he looked at me.  He then said that there are three options.  The first one was Boot Camp but that would probably be to hard for me.  The next is a group fitness class but he would suggest the Weight Loss class.

Um...WHAT!!!!  You know I am an easy going girl and I often let many things roll off my shoulders but this pissed me off. I know that I am overweight but I am not really used to such blatant rudeness from people in the industry to help fat people.  I sat there in shock for a minute and I told him I wasn't sure if I was interested in any of the classes and we moved on.

But the longer I thought of this incident the angrier I got.  WTF was wrong with him.  Was he just an idiot.  Is this how he talks to all of the overweight people. How can he look at me and decide that the Boot Camp class would be too hard?  He doesn't know my capabilities or my workout regime.  I am not interested in the Boot Camp class but I don't want him to tell me that I COULDN'T DO IT!  Fucker!!!!

I like the gym for their great group cycling classes and I finished my membership process but the gym is now tainted for me.

Parental Memories are Alive

This past weekend I went to Bloomington to see a John Mellencamp concert with a friend (KG) and her parents. Woo Hoo the concert was super super AWESOME!! Bloomington is about two hours from my house so KG parents invited us (me) to stay the night at their wonderful house in the country. This isn’t really part of my story but I would like to add that the view from the guest room was spectacular. Three of the walls were windows and none of them had curtains or shades. So the sun was very bright about 9am and it glistened off of the trees and the leaves on the ground. Later in the morning there was also several deer spotted in the yard.

Spending so much time with KG parents made me think of my deceased parents and feel a bit sad that they are both gone. I don't often think of my parents or the fun times spent with them but that has been on the forefront of my mind since I have come home. Because my parents have been gone for so long I am used to life without them and I often forget the “normal” things that parents do for the adult children they love.

Dad and his little brother Jim when they were young men.

There were several small things that happened that made me wish they were still here. One of them happened on Sunday morning. I was sitting on the couch watching a pre-football TV show and discussing football with KG dad. Honestly, I have just a tiny bit of football knowledge in my head and it was a short discussion. But it made me remember how much my dad LOVED football and how he would have relished sitting on the couch talking about that with me. He would have enjoyed seeing me take an interest in something that he liked as well as explaining the mundane details to me.

Doesn't he look fierce!

Another simple example was on Saturday night before the concert. We all went out to eat and the dad insisted on paying for my meal. I tried to pay but he wouldn’t have it. That is such a parent thing to do and it was nice to have someone pay for my meal as that rarely happens (I said rarely Lou…I am very thankful you took me out to the Melting Pot for my birthday).

Typical Mom with the permed hair and striped polo.  Yikes...do I dress like her?

I think some of these feeling started about a month ago when I stayed with Ems parents for the Great Pumpkin Metric weekend. One of the evenings we were there all of us sat around the kitchen table and played Mexican Train Domino's. I never played Domino's with my parents but some of the best memories of my parents included my mom, dad and I playing cards for hours. Apparently, my social life was much slower then and we spent many many evenings eating wings and playing Spades. Those are the memories that make me happy.

I liked seeing how each set of parents try to still take care of their respective daughters in small ways. They are grown women and treated as such but you can see how the parents love their daughters and want the best for them. These “normal” family times gave me many warm and fuzzies.

I spent about an hour going through many old photo albums and I couldn’t find one single picture of my mom, dad and I playing cards. I am sad that activity was never immortalized. However, I have included one of my favorite pictures of my dad, brother and I when I was a "sweet" little girl.

Look look....I am wearing a dress.

 ***I worked on this post on three separate occasions and each time there may have been liquid leaking out of my eyes.