thanksgiving

so after the thanksgiving service wednesday night (and listening to my brother b!tch about having church for a civil holiday), AM, my closest friend here, decided to go out. we were going to go to the continental, so i headed down there. the guy playing that night was one i liked a lot. well, apparently, this bar/trying to be jazz club in dsm has become quite the place among the kids, and by the kids, i mean the alumni of valley high school, which has supposedly been ranked among the 10 snobbiest high schools in the US--who knew that you could find such a place in iowa. so there i was, trying to enjoy myself until AM figured out whether he was going to meet me there or if we would go to a dive. the music was good and the bartenders know what i drink without me asking, which makes me feel good and bad. anyway, the place filled and filled and filled with these valley high types. and a ot went through my mind.

first of all, i thought about the fact that i had no one with whom to reunite at this holiday. my friends are dispered accross the US and since my family no longer lives in oregon, i don't even get to see the few that remain there. so, pity party celebration number 1.

then i thought, wow, these people think they are so cool. and they are, right? i mean, they dress perfectly and have gone on the correct career/marriage/life paths and everything is handy dandy. they probably look at me and think, wow, who are you, you piece of sh!t?!

to which my initial reaction is, hmm, you have clothes from banana republic, but b!tches, i shop at neimans.

but of course that is shallow (and frankly, since i now make coffee for a, cough, living, not so much the case anymore).

it then occurred to me that the real meaning of this is much more significant. yes, everything has gone right for them, or at least it appears so. but everything i have been through has enriched my life so much. i wouldn't trade that for anything. i wrote a mini-poem in my head:

you are dressed in the finest linen,
but it will yellow with time.
the fabric of my life
is a rich tapestry
which will fade
but not lose its strength
and bear beauty and meaning
for generations.

ok, enough with that. i already met the poem (1) quota for this year anyway.
so i ditched the joint and met AM at the dive bar. it was a breath of fresh air. err, it was kind of smokey, but you know what i mean.

ah, you gotta love the holidays. hey, let's pretend everything is perfect more often!!! i get to have ten days of this. woopee.

after i got my caffeine and nicotine, though, i was ready for the cooking marathon followed by overendulgence. we had awesome cranberry gin martinis and onion tarts to start followed by the most perfect thanksgiving meal i have ever had. the wine was fantastic and the nap, well, if only it had never ended.

then we went to the movies. i chose, though i ended up doing a much better job than last year when my choice was "the family stone" which turned out not to be a light-hearted comedy, but really f-ing depressing. this year, we saw "happy feet." it was cute, yes, but the meaning also went along with what i had observed the previous evening.

life is enriched by adventures, failures, lessons learned, travels, heartbreaks, etc. in the end, what we have learned is valuable, for ourselves and others.
all of this from an evening in a bar and a children's movie...

...had to be at work at 4:25 this morning. sweet. why americans want to get up at 4 am the day after thanksgiving to shop is beyond me. but then, as my dad says, "no one ever lost money underestimating the stupidity of the american people." i think he might have stolen that from someone, but oh well.

tough day, but it is over. tomorrow, i start my seasonal job which actually pays much better. yeah, we'll see how that goes. i am sure i will have much to tell.

i so need that real job.