No, I'm not on a diet, that's the title of the first book chosen for our new book club.  What kind of a masochist tries to lose weight the week of Thanksgiving, anyway?  An un-American masochist, that's what.  Besides, I never try to lose wieght, obviously.  I'm not willing to live a life that doesn't include cookies.

We had our first meeting of the bookclub last Monday night. I had not read the book.  I tried to read it.  I got to around page eighty and decided I'd had enough.  When Pat Conroy's dad hit him in the face with a glass of ice tea, I realized I'd read this book before.  Because Pat Conroy has written it before.  Several times.  Once he called it The Great Santini and once he called it The Prince of Tides and both of them were horrifying and hard to read and if Mr. Conroy wants to spend his entire life and career wallowing around in the misery that was his childhood, good for him, it's kinda sad is all but I have no intention of wallowing with him for one more minute.
Also, I have a problem with authors who have characters say things like "So and so is so smart, I need a dictionary every time he opens his mouth!"  Don't tell  me a character is smart, show me.  I'll get it.  And when the so and so the character is refering to is the author, well...

    In 1998, I went to my high school reunion and not only did I get an award for being the most successful and famous member of our class, three guys came up to me and admitted that they'd had crushes on me but never said anything because they were afraid a girl with grades like mine would never have gone out with them...

If I wrote like that, my Dad would belt me, too.

There were ten of us Monday night.  One finished the book.  About five of us had read some and quit for mostly the same reasons.  One gal bought the wrong book and we were all jealous of her.

We spent three hours drinking wine and trashing Pat Conroy.  It was fun!

Tuesday I can't remember.  Oh, wait!  Tuesday, Zack made the varsity basketball team!

So his Dad beat the crap out of him! 

Not really. 
Zack is twice as big as Jay and Jay never hit any of the kids. 
I blame him for their juvenile delinquency.

I've been emailing all of Zack's teachers once a week to make sure he's getting his work done and not slipping back into his evil, lazy ways.  Tuesday I got reassurances from his teachers, including one from his history teacher saying "I don't know what you did to him over the summer, but he's not only the first one to hand in his homework, he's always courteous and well mannered."

Zack says he was standing by the teacher's desk when he wrote that, then he turned to Zack, showed him the email and said "you owe me twenty bucks!"

I say whatever works.  I wonder if his math teacher is susceptible to bribery?  Gotta be cheaper than the tutor is. 

I know, I know; it would be so wrong!

You're such a goody two shoes, no wonder no one likes you.

Wednesday I defrosted the turkey Jay will cook in the morning to ensure that even though we won't be eating here on Thanksgiving, we'll have plenty of leftovers.  I also made cranberry sauce and ginger snaps to bring to his brother's house.

I was a little short on flour for the cookies so I used Bisquik.  The cookies turned out great. It was a Thanksgiving Miracle!

I thought I had plenty of sugar for the cranberry sauce but when I opened the bag from the basement, it was rock hard.  I would've used it anyway but it was...sort of yellow.  Ewwww!!

So I wound up being one of those idiots running to the grocery store at nine p.m. the night before Thanksgiving.  To buy flour and sugar.  What a dope.

ON the other hand the gal standing behind me in line complimented me on my jacket so I felt the trip was worth while.

Thursday morning I awoke to the smell of roasting turkey.  Jay was up early and got the bird in the oven.  Before we left for his brother's house at 1:00, the turkey was carved, in the fridge and a huge pot of turkey soup was simmering on the stove.

This is why I forgive him for never beating the children.

Katie flew from New Orleans to Austin to spend the Holiday with Tyler.  They called Wednesday to make sure they'd gotten all the right groceries and knew what they were doing with the turkey.  Last year Katie spent Thanksgiving in Prague, cooking tiny turkeys for all the Americans in town.  That's almost the same as Thanksgiving in Texas, right?  I hope they don't kill each other.  Tyler let Katie have his room in the apartment he shares with two other coaches.  That's really magnanimous of him; he's a neat freak and Katie...

Okay, I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to think up a way to adequately describe what a pig Katie is and there's nothing in the English language to do her justice. 

I advised Ty to not look in his room at all until Katie is back in New Orleans.
Where the whole city now looks like her room.  Except parts of the city have been cleaned up.

Jay put a new battery in the mouse for this computer and I don't know what he did, but it's a left handed mouse now.  Strange.

Since Jay was handling all things Thanksgiving related, and it was a gorgeous day, I went for a run.  We left for his brother's house after my shower.  It's always lots of fun at Pivec's at holidays.  Jay has five brothers and a sister and all but one were there with their spouses, most of their kids and an assortment of grandkids, too.  There were easily over thirty people and everyone brought food. 

That was lunch.

For dinner, we rolled on down the road to my folks house.  Due to out of town siblings and others who choose to have the inlaws over to their house, the crowd wasn't nearly as big as the one at Pivec's but it was big and loud and hungry, too.  I thought Uncle Mickey was going to throw his glass of ice tea at Katie when she said she brought pie.  Mickey has spent the last 51 Thanksgivings at my folk's house and he always brings the pie.  It's his thing.  What was Katie thinking?  You don't take away an old man's thing!

Maybe I'll go over to her house and throw a glass of ice tea at her myself.

Got home last night around 8:30, too tired to sleep.  So I watched Glory Road, the movie about the 1965 Texas Western upset of Kentucky in the NCAA tournament championship.  LOVED IT!! Loveditloveditlovedit!!!!

Today, it's 60 degrees and sunny out. 

I think I'll put up my Christmas tree.

 

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