Thanks for the Thanks

You've heard the saying, "20 Jews, 50 opinions?"
That's my family. Except there's 25 of us. And more like 100 opinions. So much like your own, our Thanksgivings tend to be, um, loud affairs.

For about 10 Thanksgivings now, we've been migrating up and down the coast of Florida, trying to find a suitable place to hold dinner. We've been settled in Amelia Island (a half-hour outside of Jacksonville) for a couple holidays now. And it's a beautiful area, complete with salt-marshes and Florida's version of Tidewater Aristocracies. The beach is a lovely strand, dotted with pleasant condos and vacationing families. For some fortunate reason, everyone who visits the beach is respectful to the fact that some things can be enjoyed without loud music and beer cans and garbage in general, so it's a nice place to play in the sand too. Which comes in handy when 20 Southern Jews are asking about your life and telling you about your life...

The point is, it's nice that the whole family can come together in a beautiful place to be thankful.
So it doesn't really bother me that this is the second Thanksgiving that Grandma has chosen to have catered. I mean, she's been doing it for 54 some odd years now. I can see how she'd be over it.
Plus, Turkey Wars get pretty serious in this family.

But after eating the meal (salad, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, string beans and carrots for me--no turkey!) I missed that heavy feeling of guilt and glutton.

I think it's because they forgot to put in the "dash of love." Don't get me wrong, the meal was fine and the company was pleasant enough. But there's something about stressing over the individual components of Thanksgiving, wanting to make the stuffing the best possible, because it's for your family. And then, you sit down with a pile of food and stuff your face and compliment the cooks and laugh and drink and have general good times with your loved ones.

I have no complaints though, it was a nice break from work and school.

Of course, there is no easy way to shift over to my next subject. It is by far, one of the most difficult subjects anyone avoids dealing with.

An senior at my Alma Mater who had Chron's Disease and, apparently Bone Marrow Cancer died last night. 18 years old, she was a tiny girl who embodied her mother's overprotectiveness. I met her on the crew team. And I do remember watching her, as a coxswain, win her first race with her boat of four. The look of absolute glee on her face was almost inspiring to me, because it never gets as good as that first victory. And I think it was especially powerful because it was like the first time her mom had ever let her play outside, and she had won!! Her boat threw her in the water as winning rowers are wont to do, and her happiness spread to the rest of the team, a tiny young thing laughing in the mucky water.
I can honestly say I never saw the girl show any negative attitude. She was always open; to suggestions, new ideas, new people. She might have missed a few practices, because she was ill, but she always pulled more than her weight, and believe me, with her 5 foot stature, that was a lot. So I choose to remember her the way I knew her, a happy, giggly, optimistic, kind, loving, friendly teenaged girl.

It will never, ever be easy to understand why some people die "before their time." Who's to say what she could have accomplished? I feel a great sadness for her family and her friends. No one deserved this pain.

This Universe works in mysterious, suprising ways. Who is to say all the great things she might have accomplished? She had many dreams, I'm sure. It's not fair that she didn't get the chance to take a crack at them. It's not fair that she didn't get to experience the stress of applying to college, the anticipation of waiting for that big, fat envelope.
It's not fair that her crush didn't ask her to her senior prom. It's not fair that she won't get to gain her freshman 15. It's not fair that she has to rely on Ramen or cold pizza for sustenance so that she can pay her tuition or rent. It's not fair that she will never have to look for a job. It's not fair that she will never have to get dressed in business atire and sit through an interview for a job she might have ended up hating anyways. It's not fair that she will never get to go through the stress of relationships. It's not fair that she will never be able to say "I love you" to someone other than her family. It's just not fair.

No one said life was fair.
That being said, I can only hope that people take time to appreciate the things in life that make them stronger....

Let's do the Time Warp.

Hey. I was only gone for, like, three days. I know my last name is strikingly similar to a certain character in a Romanticist American Folktale involving a coma, and I know that I did sleep for a long time, but this is ridiculous.

Could I really have gone back in time? Because I could have sworn that we, as a public hungry for media, handled this Micheal Jackson silliness a long time ago. As in, In Living Color was able to run it into the ground so much that I can vaguely remember it.

Or maybe Emm-Jay is reminding people that we can laugh at him. Or maybe, just maybe, the other news is too depressing or "controversial" or, I don't know, informative. Maybe this is what the public wants to know about, in a three hour non-stop coverage.

I know I certainly felt better when Fox news replayed (no less than 5 times in 3 minutes) the clip of Micheal's jet coming into the hangar. And the car leaving to Never Never Land.

I guess no child went unfed in soem third world nation. I guess there were no heroic deeds this week. Was there no scandal in the government or Fortune 500? Is life really that dull that Micheal Jackson's pesky pedophilia (always alliterate) has to become the center of our lives?

I guess so. In which case, I think I'll go back to bed.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

These days, it seems everyone and their mother (now that's redundant!) is carrying the flu around like a Louis Vuitton handbag. (I'm more of a Kenneth Cole girl myself, if anyone was wondering what to get me for Chanukah.)

Anyways, I promised myself I'd be unique and not get sick. I thought I'd be an optimistic little thing and will myself into health. For weeks, it seemed to work quite well. I attributed my runny noses and "productive" coughs to the class room that was circulating dusty air. Exhaustion? Well that's just part of being a working student. Fever? I'm just that hot. Chills? Why it's 68 degrees out! (that's cold!) (ish.) Aches? I've been sleeping poorly!
I was not going to do what everyone else was doing, and that was catching the flu.

In my defense, I didn't catch the flu. The flu caught me. And very much by suprise, at that.
But now, it's exam season again. This is when lectures get really important, and I just can't miss class. And no one wants to pick up my shifts since their hands are full with the sick. So it looks like it's back to denial for me.

My allies through this next battle will most certainly be fluids, blankets and the coveted Big, Gray Sweatshirt.
(Don't worry, I'm still too cool to wear socks with flip-flops.)

I feel like Jules Verne's character

I mean, I actually gained a day. A whole Sunday to devote to something. I have no clue how that one happened by. My guess is it is somewhat rooted in the fact, that sheerly by getting caught up in studying so much that before i knew it, oh my goodness gracious! It's already early! And Test A is in x hours. Then work, and sort of nonstop caffeine consumption to study for an unintentional eight hours. (I mean, out of the sixteen, eight were unintentional). So I had very little fuel. And they (they being the unmentionables, thanks to a certain North-Central Floridian's State Education Center's student organization) also cancelled the Roots concert, which very briefly, had been the shining point of my week. So I was semi-bummer-ed. And then the full moon rose and experienced an eclipse, so my uterus thoughtfully geeked out for that. So, you know, gender roles and stuff, I must react. And me might having to be working over Thanksgiving break, that helps it be different.
But somehow, in all the self-involved hubbub, I managed to miss something and suddenly, I still have Sunday. Most likely to sleep. But don't you see? I have finished with studies! I don't have to work 'til Monday! I can read, I can eat (!tips!), I can be the rich peasant! I have myself an all time Classic, Lazy Sunday! I don't believe I've had one of these since I was an eight year old.*
So I will be enjoying it quite thoroughly. I think this is a Karma PTO type thing. Which just goes to show what a few nice manners (à la Phileas Fogg, or even Monsier Jean Passepartout) (!) can do for one's self. This inspires me to work more.
I've at least been trying to be optimistic. Even if the sky is gray and the chance of rain is 99%, I'll still put on sunblock and leave the umbrella behind. And I'm trying to think of real life as vacation, that way I have a long, but difficult vacation.

Anyways, keep your ears out for a hot-air balloon salesman, I might be interested as of tomorrow (or Sunday-day, as I am just getting off work.)
Laila-slash-Boker Tov.

*(But I'm pretty sure that one resulted in the Monday morning excuse I offered to my French teacher, in relation to the fact that I was without semi-important homeworkless. Semi-important, meaning, that it was worthy of the smartest kid's parent helping for a weekend. I think I may have even had a partner.)

in cognito's in

Far be it from me to know anything about the cutting edge of style. I make my wardrobe decisions based on :
1- time
2- comfort
3- weather
4- activity
Occasionally I accesorize with such timeless pieces as bucket hats or hot pink aviators. More often than not, I make celebrity appearances in sweat pants, t-shirts and flip-flops. Since I keep it simple, I avoid fashion magazines like the plague. But there's a recent trend that has caught my eye.

You, you fans of the "rockstar in disguise" look. We know who you are, with your trucker hat with the brim pulled low and the $1,000 Gucci sunglasses to hide your famous features. You are not so clever.

But if enough people start looking famous, who will the famous people look like?