Thanksgiving Recap

This Thanksgiving was marvelous.  Sean's brother Rob came down to visit and dine with us and as I told him, we love when he visits because he's "lived in Africa, so we don't worry!"   Ha ha.  He is so easy. Nothing about our weird apartment fazes him and he is happy with anything.  So nice.  Something I think about often is how adaptable humans are, and though Sean and I grew up with in larger domains with more amenities and luxuries and conveniences than we now enjoy, we adjusted, and though it would be nice to have those things, we are living proof that life can be lived without them, and still be tolerable, even awesome.  It's a reminder that  I love, and has come to be a quality I appreciate in others.


Having one person come visit for t-giving is great. a) that's basically all we have room to house, and b) it's just enough to make a Thanksgiving dinner but not too much to stress about it.  So we got some stuffed turkey breasts at Trader Joe's and other boxed items (it's gourmet if it's at TJ's) and threw it all together Thurs morn. It was nice.  I didn't hate it.  (I'm pretty anti-cooking these days) Sean crock-potted those turkeys and we made 2 pies, some potatoes, some carrots and a brussel sprouts dish, and whatever else.  To be honest, i can take or leave Thanksgiving dinner.  I don't need to have a big feast.  I am just as happy bagging it and eating out or playing in the city.  But it was nice to have some additional family. Sean and i have sufficiently scared away visitors (since most who've visited are strangers who want a couch) so it was nice to have one we actually wanted.

Highlights of the vacation:

• Playing Globe.
• Dominating at Globe.
• Being with people who'd want to play Globe with me in the first place. 
• Peer pressuring Rob to put Chess on his phone so we can play.  
• Giving Rob the first Hunger Games book and watching him read himself sick waaay late into the night. 
• Having someone else for Julian to look at/play with and who will look at/play with him.  What a treat for everyone. 
• Running into the city on Black Friday to see Santa and shop a little.  Glorious day. The Holiday Market was up, the playground was delightful, the sun warm, the doughnuts gooey. In essence, the perfect Black Friday. 
• Saw Twilight. Sean and I couldn't stop talking about it. Pretty outstanding. More on that later.
• bought a candle that is like a Christmas tree in a box. (the candle came in a box) If you must get a fake tree, the least you could do is buy this candle to give the illusion your Christmas is real. It's sooo delicious.  Even the box smells. I might even have kept it. Next to me on the desk here. And sniff it randomly throughout the day. I might.
• The expansion of Julian's cell.  Another thing about living in small spaces is it makes you very conscious of the items you bring into it. It all adds up pretty fast.  And pretty soon you'll be holding your baby in one hand and an item in the other, weighing them against each other. So in this case, Julian won and we got some IKEA crap and gave him a good 20 square feet of additional bedroom.  He has a new rug, a bookshelf, toy shelf, nightlight, two lamps.  He even has a big kid bed but it's not been installed because we're putting that one off as long as we can. It's leaning against the wall in the hall outside the apartment and when he gets in his stroller he points at it lovingly and says, "Nee-in's bed!"  and i say happily, "that's right! Julian's bed!"  and there's no further discussion.  Side note: How cute is it how he says his name. Nee-in.  I did not foresee that. Similarly, he often calls Sean "Non."  Equally cute.
• Having a fabulous Italian dinner at home consisting of Il Porto pizza (rivals Grimaldi's. Seriously. And they deliver to my door--important),  and some sausage and cheese and other antipasti Rob picked up at Mario Batalli's Eataly. (he spent some time in the south of Italy)  Topped with Orangina.  We all declared this was going to be our Thanksgiving feast for next year.
• Breakfasting at Tom's Diner for some pancakes and eggs.  I got the cinnamon pancakes stuffed with banana.

In conclusion, a fine weekend indeed.  I know this one is kind of boring but i thought people might want to read more about the ins and outs of Jen's life instead of just witticisms (aka, this is what i do when i don't have any).

Also, happy golden birthday to my sister Ash. We're a year and a half apart & i must say, these past 30 years have been some of the best of my life.