The Holidays officially begin!

Thanksgiving is my favorite day of the year, and that hasn't changed since Nichole and I started hosting for my family a couple of years ago. Yesterday we got up a 8 a.m. and began cooking, after we'd spent most of the evening before doing the same thing. On the menu:
--Cornish game hens. We dethawed, rinsed and basted these babies, which turned out to be quite a bit bigger than we had expected. We only ate three of the six, and sent one whole bird home with my parents and grandparents and saved one for ourselves. They were good, but holding and drying a warm Cornish game hen was really disturbing... it has the weight and feel of a baby. *Shudders*
--green rice, which is a cheesy, ricey, broccoli-ish dish of wonderment Nichole learned to make from--and then did it better than--her mother.
--mashed potatoes, kept warm in a crock pot, as read in GO Magazine.
--plenty of wine and beer
--Charlotte Russe, a custard-and-cream that my mom makes, that has been passed down through her family.
--green beans

Then we all gathered around our table, Nonee in her wheelchair off to the side. Then, after cleanup and some conversation with my parents, Nichole and I fell asleep on the Cowboys game for about three hours. It was a delightful evening.

A few other things have happened since my last blog:

--I haven't been running too much, but have decided that the Go! St. Louis Marathon will be my next race. I'll start next month (the weather should make it fun), and hopefully have lots of interesting things to say.

--Barry Bonds was indicted for purjury. Yawn. I don't really care what happens to Barry, he deserves what he gets, and I couldn't make a good argument for him even getting into the Hall of Fame, but I do care what happens to his records. I hope they stick. The steriod era covered almost 20 years of the game's history--anyone who cares about records knows any and all of those numbers are suspect, but when we start tearing them down, pretending like the era never happened, it has a cheapening effect on the game far beyond a few inflated home run totals. Learn from the mistakes, don't let them happen again, but don't insult the fans by pretending the home runs from 1987-2004 were never hit. Where would you begin? More importantly, where would you stop?

--Today I'm going to put up Christmas lights. Full disclosure: One of my few phobias is ladders. Hate 'em. But I put up Christmas lights because it makes Nichole smile. When I'm done, I feel like this:



Looks like the decorating fest is under way!

Peace,

ML