Life 2.1

I think today was the hardest day since I have been here. Today was Thanksgiving and everyone is home but I’m here. Today is a day when I wish that teleporting was invented. Though I never really fessed up to it in order to avoid a cheesy-ness factor, at my family holiday parties and get togethers, there always seemed to be a moment when I would take it all in and think to myself, ‘wow. Look at all of us. Being a part of this is something special because not everyone has a family like mine. We all get along and cousins are more like siblings.’ I have always been pretty proud of my family and everyone’s accomplishments. Not just in my own immediate world, but looking at all that both sets of grandparents created. It’s something pretty unique and I’m lucky to be a part of it. Luckily I haven’t ever had to miss it.

But today I do.

I was fortunate enough to have one of the coaches open up his home and I shared Thanksgiving with him and his family and cooked with his wife, which made the day a bit easier, but while it was the next best thing to being with my own family, it wasn’t home.

About three years ago, I started reading KA’s blog because she was a scrapbooker with very lovely layouts that I often scrap-lifted. Today, I read her latest posting, an installment of ‘Thursday This’ in which she lists her favorite things. Today, she listed all the things for which she is thankful and I’m feeling inspired to do the same.

I’m thankful for:

For my dad, who taught me to be strong and independent and for making sure I always have all the tools to succeed, like a new set of golf clubs, and for helping me with adult things like 401(k)s and IRA rollovers.                                                                                                              

For my mom, who always listens and advises, sends me text message football game updates and for always answering the phone when I have a cooking question.                         

For my brothers, who send me text messages to tell me that they miss me and their selfless offers to eat my leftovers.                                                                            

For Cindy, who is the big sister that I didn’t have and who I sometimes call just so I can hear her ringback tone of the the Napa High fight song. I really do.                                             

I am very fortunate and I have a lot for which to be thankful, including my bed and the Aunt Maggie pillows on which I’m about to lay my head.

While I didn’t realize that it was an endangered food, after experiencing the Po’ Boy Festival yesterday, I am totally in favor of saving/preserving/eating them.

After a brief stint of sleeping in Sunday morning, I did a little work and threw on some shoes (as per order of the text message I received:

Po boy fest. Put ur shoes on don’t worry about what you wear. Down here and it’s awesome…

So I did just that and was even open to dealing with the crowds and put up with horrible parking situations, and we all know that that right there is half the battle for me.

20,000 of my closest friends. Not to be confused with the 20,000 closest friends from Halloween

I met up with everyone around 1:30 at Maple Leaf Bar, which was pretty much home base the rest of the day.

home base

JP convincing me to go to Metallica later than night

We walked around the festival, with our pick of po’ boys surrounding us. Local establishments set up tents and tables all along the sidewalks and served a variety of po’ boy offerings, ranging from fried shrimp to a portobello muffaletta po’ boy (which was actually quite delicious and I’m not a big portobello fan) to a traditional pulled pork style. My only regret is not sampling more.

Of course, because I’m the woman who never carries cash, I had to hit up an ATM while there (shame on me, attending a giant street festival with only a card!) but props to my bank back home for not charging me to take out cash from other ATMs and reimbursing up to five other bank ATM fees. That right there saved me 5 whole American dollars.

Also on the list of things that were rad would be the loaf of bread I got for free. It was almost as tall as me. Yes, I know that’s not saying much but it was a good 3 feet of bread. I ate quite a bit (the Atkins diet has nothing on me) and dueled with it, since I wasn’t the only lucky recipient of a giant loaf of bread. And they encourage playing with your food at these kinds of events.

Large loaves of bread can also be used as a guitar

I think the pictures best sum it up, but I had an absolute great day with a great group of people. I even woke up this morning still riding the high of the fun I had yesterday.

TSkaff and Justin outside of Maple Leaf

po boys everywhere, including a real one pinned to this dudes hat

Kelsey and JP = ♥

The Grand Marshall of the Parade

You may not be able to tell but I am holding my 3 foot loaf of free bread

Taking it all in

See all the money we saved on bread?

Yep, I’m gonna be all right here.

Just because I don’t live there anymore doesn’t mean I stopped paying attention. I have spies everywhere. It’s awesome

Napa 45, Folsom 42

*Props to Josers for sending this pic and keeping me posted.

….the giant cockroach was not found in my house. Thank goodness.

Thank you and good day.

**Disclaimer for Kelly: The following post contains a reference to something that totally creeps/grosses you out. Something that starts with an ’s’ and rhymes with ‘wider’. However, no pictures of the aforementioned Arachnids exist in the post.**

I remember when I first visited the boot, my mom asked me if the bugs were bad because when she had visited Tennessee, via roadtrip from CA when she was growing up, she remembered the bugs being an issue in the south. I shrugged in response to her question, not remembering anything out of the ordinary in the insect department.

Then I moved here. And someone warned me about the cockroaches. Now, I wouldn’t exact put myself in the category of being scared of bugs. Don’t get me wrong, if I see a spider in my house, I’m not thrilled, but I don’t scream and hope that a Paul Bunyon-like man will come through the door to kill it for me. I’m perfectly capable of flushing them down the toilet myself. But right after I moved here, I saw this giant bug flying around and it was then that I learned that cockroaches can fly. Gross.

Then came the day when I was in flip-flops and I was walking, minding my own business, when one found its way under my flip-flop. I just shuddered as I relived that moment whilst typing. I will spare everyone the details but it was totally gross and contrary to popular belief, not at all funny. It’s a good thing I live near an Old Navy and can purchase $3 replacement flip-flops as necessary.

Fast-forward to today. When I saw this and jumped 10 feet in the air:

Um, it’s half the length of that cocktail napkin. And that’s not counting the antennae length. If I were to have picked it up (and we are talking in pure hypothetical because in this circumstance, I would make a Paul Bunyon-like man do it for me), it would have exceeded the size of my fist.

It reminded me of this commercial:

I know the commercial features a termite and not a cockroach, but it was pretty much right on as far as bug-size-to-scale in my head.

*Insert creeped out face here*

**Update: As I was preparing to post this, I was filling out my tags and accidentally typed ‘cocktail’ instead of cockroach. Freudian slip? I think so.

*Note to Grandma Joan: OMG stands for Oh My God, often used in exclamation for something unbelievable. It started in chat rooms as a shorthand response on the internet and now has a comfortable home in daily spoken slang.