Turkey Day '09

Thanksgiving has once again come and gone. Bring on Christmas, right? Maybe. Maybe not.

What's happened to that holiday spirit? What's happened to the appreciation of everyone gathering around you? Thanksgiving was great but it was pretty low key. Ran in the Flying Feather 4-Miler on Thanksgiving morning. It was a fun race and probably one of the best schwag bags I've ever come across... l/s tech shirt, gloves, stocking cap and a bottle of wine. It was worth every cent of the registration fee. And there were a ton of people. Nearly 2700 finished. On a side note, I know I should've gone faster, but my legs felt stiff and I settled for a 25:40. I did, however, get 3rd in my age group, but I don't think they hand out the big checks for that.

The Tyler side celebrated Thanksgiving in Dublin this year so there were no trips to Piqua planned as it would've made zero sense to fight traffic Wednesday night just to turn around and head home Thursday morning. I was in charge of the mashed potatoes. Erica was in charge of the cranberry sauce and whip cream. My first mistake was underestimating how long it would take to peel enough potatoes for 20 people. So that led to my second mistake, which was trying to stuff peelings from 22 potatoes down the disposal at once. After that, the mistakes just kind of spiraled out of control but we did make it to the party at 2pm with some pretty fluffy potatoes. The only problem was that a clogged drain waited for me at home. We headed out around 9pm (lame that we were the last ones to go) and found the drain as we'd left it. Erica had the idea of using a plunger and I immediately got to work making a complete mess... but IT WORKED! I was able to suck enough peelings into the side sink that the water drained and the disposal worked like new again. So, after many a lesson learned, it was off to bed knowing we had a long drive to Cincinnati the next morning.

Cincinnati was pretty uneventful. Stayed up Friday night playing euchre. Ran out at Miami Whitewater Saturday morning, Thanksgiving dinner Saturday night followed by more euchre. We did hop on over to Western Bowl – Home of the Hoinke Classic, for a few friendly bowling matches with Erica's friend, Brandi, and her boyfriend, Doug. In the five years I've been with Erica, we've never gone bowling despite my pleas and that finally changed Saturday night. It was a great time even though we all did pretty terrible and I now have sore muscles in places I didn't know muscle existed. Got a little work done Sunday and it was back up 71 to Columbus.

To be honest, I've yet to recover from two pretty lousy nights of sleep in Cincinnati. That may be the reason for the foul mood. It might be the lack of a Turkey Bowl appearance that's got me down, but dammit I need to snap out of it and start rockin' out this Christmas spirit. There's so much to look forward to in the coming weeks... like leftover turkey.