So I went back to North East Ohio for Thanksgiving. I spent about six days going around old haunts, drinking a lot of Christmas ale (per semi-drunken status updates on Facebook), and attending a high school reunion. All in all it was good fun. I ate way too much and drank more than I should (I spent one afternoon at Kraynaks hung over). I’ll get more into the meat and potatoes of my break in a bit, but what’s really on my mind is the holiday season and how I’m just not in the mood for it this year.
The GF is leaving town this weekend and won’t be back till right before Christmas. I’m heading down to Orlando next week to spend time with family and take pictures of massively obese people on mobility scooters (a hobby of mine). We have yet to put up any Christmas decorations, although we have taken them out of the closet so we can put away Halloween decorations. When we go holiday shopping, I don’t even notice all the Christmas and holiday displays and have no desire to check out Christmas lights. I don’t want to shop for presents and I really couldn’t care if I didn’t receive anything either. Honestly, I think my attitude to the holiday is brought on by a culmination of events that made for a fairly shitty 2010. I wasn’t expecting this year to be terrible at all; quite the contrary, I couldn’t wait for it to start at the beginning of the year (anything was better than the shitty 2000′s). Now I’m not saying everything is doom and gloom, but rather that I’m just finding a bit hard to get into the spirit of things at the moment.
I don’t mean to bore you, just an observance I wanted to get off my chest. Let’s get back to vacationing in Warren, Ohio, shall we?
The idea of leaving Washington, DC on a Monday night as opposed to Tuesday or Wednesday paid off in spades. We left around 7:00-7:30 and rolled into Warren around 2:00 am, great time. I go to bed and wake up the next morning to speak at Howland High School about the importance of public service and how one manages life inside and outside the so-called Washington Bubble. This activity was brought on by a letter of thanks I wrote to the local paper a few years back thanking a teacher I had Senior year of high school. One thing leads to another and I’m spending a day talking to HS juniors about college, internships, and how life is like for young professionals in the District; basically I just shot the shit with 16-17 year olds for an afternoon. It was a lot of fun and I think I got through to a couple of kids (literally two). Most though, were pissed that I showed up because I postponed movie day till after the holiday break (The movie was American History X and I was assured permission slips were issued).
Afterwards, I went to Sunrise Pizza, ate three meatballs and a pizza and promptly fell asleep on the GF’s mom’s couch.
Thanksgiving was interesting. For the GF’s family, we had dinner at Home Town Buffet at the EWM. The food was good and the atmosphere was very “Warren’ie”. There was a wall that had framed pictures of all the presidents and astronauts from ohio, all surrounding a statue of liberty. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the statue of liberty isn’t from Ohio, nor is Ohio bordering france, nor is Ohio in France, was once in France, nor is France itself.
I saw an inordinate amount of severely obese people in wheel chairs with oxygen masks. Again, just an observation.
What an obese man in a mobility device may look like.
After Dinner 1, the GF and I packed up in my car and drove to nearby Hermitage, PA for dinner 2. Dinner two proved to be a formidable opponent. There was just too much food and I think the stuffing had trace amounts of crack in it. I couldn’t stop eating*!
Afterwards, we went home and called it a day.
Friday was the HS reunion, I’ll get to that in another post.
The GF wasn’t feeling too hot that Saturday, so I made the trip back to Hermitage and hung out at Kranyaks for a bit before going back to my dad’s house for a couple of birthday parties. Not much more to talk about, just that we didn’t leave on Saturday (like we wanted to) and instead left early Sunday.
That’s pretty much my Thanksgiving in a nutshell.
* I should mark as a disclaimer that if the GF reads this, her stuffing is better and out of the two, I would pick hers.
There DOES seem to be an inordinate amount of fat people with Rascals back home. Weird.