My Thanksgiving Story

For Thanksgiving, my family drove to Porterville (about an hour away from Fresno) to celebrate with my husband Brad's side of the family: Thanksgiving on Thursday and Brad's and his mom's birthdays on Friday. Thursday morning was a little crazy getting everyone up and going, plus packing for everyone for our overnight trip. (For anyone who hasn't traveled with a baby: Babies require lots of stuff. It doesn't seem like they should need so much, but once you get everything together that they might need, it somehow easily fills a mid-sized SUV.) So around 9:30 we're walking out the door a little rushed and frazzled and I say to Brad, "Well, if we forgot anything, we can buy it when we get there... Well, tomorrow since everything's closed today." "Yeah, right. The busiest shopping day of the year," Brad reminds me. "Well, then we'll just do without," I say, confident we have everything. Little did I realize at that moment, that the bag with Brad's and my clothes and toiletries was sitting on our bed, packed and ready to go nowhere. We didn't realize this until about 7:30 that night. I was filled with disbelief, blame, panic, and laughter in that order. Brad drove around Porterville and found one gas station mini-mart open. He found one of the four items on our list of necessities that my mother-in-law didn't have to offer us. It wasn't deoderant. Then we changed into funny, borrowed clothes and washed our own. (This was pretty necessary since I had been spit-up on several times that day.) The next morning we showered, put on our clean clothes, and found a Long's Drugs that wasn't filled with Christmas shoppers and bought deoderant (Happy Birthday Brad). I wish I could say that somehow through all this I learned to be thankful, but it just isn't that kind of story. It is funny, though. Now.

Bumbershoot

That's a word you'll need as the weather turns wetter, a fun alternative to the not-so-boring word "umbrella". It's Merriam-Webster Online's word of the day today. Click here to read more about "bumbershoot".

Update: Help Curb the Litter Problem

How cool is this? I got a letter from William Skinner, the Interim Assistant Director of the Fresno Department of Public Utilities. Not a form letter but a real, personally written letter. He says he spoke with the "city refuse collection vehicle" drivers in my area about the problem. He also claims he has visited my neighborhood the last three weeks after the garbage pickup to make sure the areas were clean. And I have noticed a difference in the neatness of the neighborhood as well. I am quite impressed. I did not expect such feedback, but am pleased with it, of course. (He also noted that it is important to not overfill the "refuse carts" as that might cause material to fall out upon dumping.)

Out Of Excuses

This morning I was in a parking lot and a young guy approached me asking for money for gas for him and his mom. I thought for a second and then told him a half-truth (i.e. a lie) that I didn't have any cash. He thanked me and went on. About five seconds later I remembered that I had a new plan for handling those types of situations (meet him at the gas station and purchase some gas for him there) but, of course, by then it was too late. I was always taught not to give anything out to people who ask for anything. They're just going to spend the money on alcohol or drugs. They might be dangerous. They're probably high right now and will pull out a knife and stab you if you make eye contact. That sort of thing. At some point I started to feel convicted, though. That I should be feeding the hungry, you know? But, I reasoned, they are probably lying about their needs, so that frees me from any obligation to help them. Jesus didn't say to feed the liars, right? But I've come to the point where I can hardly keep lying to myself anymore. I know I can buy someone what they need instead of giving money. I know I can request to meet them in a safer place to offer help. And who ever said that doing the right thing is risk-free, anyway? I've also come to realize that I could be in that person's place. I mean, I used to believe that to the extent that I'm a person and they're a person, so okay, yeah. But I really believe that now. Had I made slightly different decisions in my life, I could be asking you for some money, too. Depending on what happens tomorrow, I could be asking you for help next week. I could be asking you for gas money because I need more gas. Or I could be asking you for gas money because I need more liquor. My pride makes me not want to believe it, but pride won't save me from calamity or consequences. So how can I treat someone whose distress could be mine, someone created by God in His image, with such total disrespect and fear? I have no more excuses.

Losing

I was wrong to count on Brett Favre. The guy only got me .28 point (yes, that's .28, not 28) out of my losing total of 46.83. I believe this is the worst score I've had all season. (Gabe scored 80.15 points.) Not everyone's scores are final yet since there's still a game tonight, but it looks like I may slip from 7th to 9th. Ouch!

Fantasy Football Fun

My brother-in-law, Gabe, started a fantasy football league for my family this year. I had never participated in one before and I'm always up for any sort of competition, so I signed up and put together my team. It's nothing like real football: I beat my husband and lost to my mother. But it's a lot of fun. We (well about half of the ten of us) do a lot of smack talking against whoever we're playing the next week. This week I'm up against Gabe, the king of smack talk, so there has been some fun and friendly banter between us that I thought you might enjoy reading. My team is UnnecessaryRoughness and his team is the Killer Chameleons. (And this is all in good fun.)

From: UnnecessaryRoughness
Title: Dearest Gabe...
Message: What is that old saying? Pride comes before what? Ah yes: Pride comes before a fall. One good score and it all goes to your head. Please don't fool yourself into forgetting the previous seven weeks, brother-in-law. I'd hate for you to make a fool of yourself and you're newly named team. Your team reminds me a bit of Brett Favre's performance: He feels the pressure, plays a good game and then gets overconfident and throws a few interceptions. But what am I doing comparing your piecemeal team with one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time? Oh yeah, and Favre should be feeling the pressure this week and put up a pretty good score. Maybe I should just play him alone to give you a good chance of winning.

From: Killer Chameleons
Title: sara, sara, sara...
Message: i don't want you to get confused and think that just because my team has a bunch of people you've never heard of, that they aren't still powerful. clearly you are a bit confused, however, if you think that favre is going to get you any more wins this year. if you think throwing five interceptions in one game is good, then please, by all means, start him this week and let's see what happens. let's just say that i have a feeling this is the week where i finally climb out of the 'Starbucks Card' hole...i've kept the spot warm for you, though, so i hope you enjoy 9th place!
Your respectful bro-in-law,
gabe

From: UnnecessaryRoughness
Title: To Gabe
Message: Gabe, you may have just had a birthday but it is evident that you are still so young. To say that I don't know any of your players is inaccurate. In fact, I know a couple of them well enough that I dumped them off of my team to get rid of dead weight. But if they are the players you deem best, well, then, I certainly won't stop you from playing them. On another note, it saddens me so to see the league commissioner struggling just to get out of ninth place while the rest of us are trying to win the jackpot. Such pity brings to my mind thoughts of throwing this match so that you can keep your dignity. But I'm sure you wouldn't accept such charity. So, if by some chance you do win this week, you can be sure that it was by your own good luck.

From: Killer Chameleons
Title: let me tell you a thing or two about luck...
Message: Luck is drafting Tomlinson in an autodraft and coasting on his back through the fantasy football season, thinking that somehow that makes you good at this game (yes curtis, i have dragged you back into this). It takes a lot more than luck to sort through leftovers on the waiverwire and piece together a team that is good enough to not only replace injuries to your #1 wr and rb, but also to put together a 100-point performance with those same players - the players who other managers mistook for worthless. Yes, Sara, it takes a lot more than luck to see potential in someone who others think is dead weight'. And it takes more than luck to realize that Brett Favre is past his prime and probably shouldn't be drafted in the first round. And finally, it takes a lot more than luck to smack-talk everyone you play when you have arguably the worst team in the league (I may be bad, but I will not be silent!)... No, Sara, it takes what we call skill to do all of these things, and this weekend you will get an up-close experience with some of the mad skills that I am talking about... Enjoy the lesson!
Your teacher,
Gabe

From: UnnecessaryRoughness
Title: Pick a game and play it
Message: If you are trying to win the smack talk game (for which there are no monetary or Starbuck's prizes) then you are definitely a frontrunner, Gabe. But if you are going to take such pride in your smack performances you can at least grant us all the privilege of hearing some new material instead of a rehash of previous weeks' talk. Of course, I understand if you just can't think of anything bad to say against my team and that's why you have to go back to smacking Curtis. Not that it makes a difference in the game the rest of us are playing: I expect Curtis's and my teams will both score more than yours this week.