gracias.. and merci

i'm supposed to give thanks on thanksgiving, and i did/do/will always...
but life is nuts and weird and good, so giving thanks is sometimes more complicated than it should be...

i ate SOOO much this past 4-day weekend. holy crap, am i a fatass. and holy crap, does it feel good. except that most of my pants probably don't fit anymore. oh well! the nine of us cooked gargantuan amounts of yummy-licious food, and there was so much that it lasted another 3 or 4 meals. in fact, there's still some left... hehe. mac-and-cheesy heaven, cranberry sauce, two turkeys (one fried! one oven-roasted!), mashed potatoes with amazing parmesan, banana bread, zucchini casserole, green bean casserole, stuffing, corn, biscuits, spinach and artichoke dip, spanikopitas, wine, beer, and 4 pies. yes, there were 4 pies.

and then, on saturday, i spent most of the day hanging out with my brother and the 2 hammy nieces. they're so incredibly adorable, it's almost ridiculous. hammy because maddy, the elder (haha), is quite the character.. and because katie/katherine/kat is just pure chub. haha. we went to the children's museum in san jose and played with water and science and mirrors and tons of other kiddos. it was fun :)

aaaand we have a itty-bitty, superly-wonderfully decorated christmas tree. it makes the season go yahoooo! it's almost december, peoples. the clock goes kaboom. thank you, father time.

delta is dumb

one day, i'm gonna own my own airplane and fly wherever i want, whenever i want, for whatever price i want, without having to make retarded stopovers in salt lake city first. this is all gonna occur after i own my own cell phone company. hrmm.

sleepy babble

so during this past week, i got a ridiculously small amount of sleep.

which made me somewhat delirious on tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, and sunday. haha. waking up at 5:30am and going to bed at 12:30am or 1 isn't the best idea in the world... especially if it's approximately 6 days in a row. so in total, i probably slept a total of 30 hours all week long. aye ya, steph, aye ya..

i had this rather strange thought a while ago: in my short existence thus far, i've made some really good friends that i've shared some really good times with. but things always change, and people move and move on, and distance and time separate people. and sometimes, i get to re-unite and live in the same city as old and wonderful friends. and it's lovely. and i meet new ones too. but other times, weeks and months and dates pass... but in the end, for some odd reason, i always feel like (or fervently hope?)... one day, no matter how long has passed, i'll get the chance to re-bond and giggle and eat and drink and be merry with all my friends again. like long ago..

odd thoughts abound when deprived of sleep.

i did go running a few times this week -- in shorts and a tank top in 65-70-degree weather! in late november. california is nutty.

i might pee in my pants

'cause i'm so psyched :)

soo... last night, after returning home from a few sessions of tutoring, i happily noted that the democrats were only THREE seats away from taking the house. yahoo. then, as i haphazardly drove to tennis, i got even more excited -- so excited and distracted that i completely drove past the tennis courts and had to turn around 4 blocks later. aaand i even got to talk to opie-o-rama who was celebrating the handover in power on the east coast. yahoo! later on, before i went to bed, all the news sources had officially reported the democrat's house win... and the pending status of the senate race. i went to bed pretty content :)

when i forced myself out from under my warm, cozy, soft, fluffy covers this morning at the absurd hour of 5:30am, i noticed that virginia and montana were still the two states left that would eventually determine whether the senate would be republican, democrat, or evenly split. virginia!! i should've stayed there and voted! or registered... and voted absentee from california this year. hmm anyway, too bad that harold ford in tennessee lost. oh well. so i ventured onto work, and amidst my 7:30am-to-6pm workday on the boat, captain jackson randomly reported to me: "rumsfeld resigned" and "the dems practically have the senate too". i almost peed in my pants, and i think i did say "HOLY SHIT!" a little too loud while being surrounded by 6th graders. oops. so then, being the old fogie that i've become, i drove all the way home from east bay (like.. 1.5 freaking hours) listening to npr and analysis of the democrats' win.

and can i just say -- i'm SO EXCITED!!

ahhhhh!!!!! okay, here's my whole schpeel via stream-of-consciousness: so for the past 6 years, i've developed a rather disillusioned view of politics. it's probably due to an accumulation of southern republican-ness that i dealt with while in dear tennessee and to a year of stupid republican policy while living in dc. i probably also don't have to mention the fact that bushisms are retarded, the iraqi war fiasco makes me cry, the corrupt sex scandals are forty-times worse than clinton's nasty mess, the economy is crazy, and the environment and stem cells need attention. okay, so REALLY disillusioned with the effectiveness of bush's administration. in fact, i think i did cry when bush got re-elected 2 years ago. i also remember cursing the american public.

right-o. so now, now that the american public has finally got a clue (WAHOO!) and the democrats have power again -- if for nothing else than oversight and checks and balances, i'm soooo happy. but... i'm a little worried about it too. now that the democrats have a semblance of power, they can no longer play the blame game, and instead of criticizing and analyzing republican-initiated laws and proposals, the dems are the ones at the front of the line. scary. can we do it? doooooo itttttt!

november on the west coast

hey hey, it's november.

i must've been blinking for a long time because november sure did arrive quickly. or maybe i missed it 'cause it doesn't really seem like november per se. or maybe this is just something new to get used to.

on the east coast, whether it's tennessee (which is sorta "east coast") or boston or washington, dc, autumn and fall and the latter months make their presence known with a little bit of finesse. the air becomes crisp, breaths begin to appear in thin air, layers start to pile up, the leaves change colors, and the days are noticeably shorter even before daylight savings time hits for us to "fall back." in california, the temperature cools a little, and people think about breaking out the scarves (haha), but everything else looks about the same. i'm still wearing sweatshirts at night and tshirts during the day. i still don't check the weather forecast. i still wear flipflops everywhere. last week, it did rain and blow cold wind for a whole day though... i guess that's the sign of an upcoming autumn/winter. strange, isn't it?

november 2006 is also the month of the midterm elections. in fact, they're tomorrow. and oddly, though i feel strongly about politics (particularly in this day and age), i'm not a political fanatic, and try as i might, i'm just not terribly good at keeping up with scandal and issue after scandal and issue. but i'm nervous. i mean, tomorrow's outcomes could significantly affect the state of the nation after 6 years (gasp, has it really been THAT long??) of semi-insanity and sigh-inducing, mind-blowing decisions and consequences. in fact, it could affect the state of the world.. and of course, the state of the future. sadly, i'm not registered to vote... 'cause i'm a lame-o and haven't registered in california yet. back in tennessee, the race for bill frist's senate seat is huge... who knew?! this is the state whose majority didn't back up its own home-grown, ex-senator and presidential nominee al gore. man, if only things had been different back then.

geez, i can't even imagine what dc's atmosphere is like right now...