Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Thanksgiving Recap
Well folks, it looks like the holidays are here again. Of course by now, all of the obvious clues are in place. The drugstore's Halloween candy aisles are now stocked with absurd amounts of peppermint and gingerbread. Main streets across America are now ever so slightly brighter thanks to the magic of holiday lighting arrangements. Hell, they did a news story this morning (on NPR, no less!) about the history of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special! Yes, that magical time of year is here, and what better way to start the winter shopping season than with some good old fashioned gluttony?
Yes, Thanksgiving...that most hallowed of holidays! Where gluttony is sanctioned and self-control takes a breather. And what better way for the Invisible Ben to spend the long weekend his school provided him than with the family he rarely see far from Old Ivy University and the drudgery of graduate school life? The only thing that could possibly equal that level of excitement would be spending the break with his girlfriend. (Who, I fully acknowledge, merits a better nickname than The Invisible Girlfriend, as she is quite visible and not at all a figment of my imagination.) Now imagine combining those two things together. I'll set up the equation for you. Ready?
Math Quiz
1. Thanksgiving dinner with the family + First visit with girlfriend to the Invisible Homestead = _____________
Ok, put your pencils down. I'll be collecting your papers in a moment. But first, a quick reminder that there are many possible right and wrong answers...but ultimately only one correct one. But since understanding how you figure out the answer is what's important, I suppose I'll have to recap the important details.
So my girlfriend lives about an hour south of me and the original plan was that we would travel to the Invisible Homestead together either by car or train. The tricky part was determining when to leave. I have no class on Wednesdays (or any other day of the week, depending on who you ask) this semester so it would be reasonable for me to leave here on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, my girlfriend is stuck teaching at Underwood and despite the perenially low attendance numbers the day before Thanksgiving, she still felt this annoying desire to go teach underprivileged youth. After mutually cursing her high sense of moral integrity and her commitment to education, we agreed that we would have to leave on Wednesday night, despite its inauspicious reputation as a miserable travel day.
But then, in a phone conversation confirming our plans, the Invisible Mom came up with a cunning plan. What if instead of driving up together, I drove up independently on Tuesday? The major travel day is Wednesday...not Thursday. What if my girlfriend could arrange for alternate transportation?
Which, of course, was what ended up happening. I drove up on Tuesday night, braving only moderate traffic, and my girlfriend arranged for a one-way plane ticket for Thursday morning. This worked out remarkably well, allowing me to get a little of my endless grad school reading done on Wednesday so that I could spend time with family and friends the remainder of the weekend.
So the travel arrangements worked out well, but what about the rest of the trip? Well, once I had adjusted to the renovations in the kitchen (a non-magnetic refrigerator door? strange new floor tiles? a tap providing instant boiling water in the sink?) and got reacquainted with the family dog, things generally went pretty well. I think my girlfriend gets along better with my family than I do. The whole batch of them certainly enjoyed conspiring against me when we played Trivial Pursuit, although their efforts ultimately proved futile. What's more, Mom outdid herself with the dinner, which in addition to the traditional turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie included her famous pineapple kugel. My girlfriend, who had never had kugel before, was fascinated by this new, yet strangely tasty, dish, and would later wonder why it had never caught on with the general public the same way blintzes and other such fare had. I didn't have an answer, although Mom said that she would provide the recipe should my girlfriend wish to make it herself or have her boyfriend make it for her. How very generous of her.
Despite the miserable weather on Thursday, I did have time to give my girlfriend a tour of the Invisible Hometown over the following two days and she got to meet a bunch of the Old Guard including the Caseator, Throat, Sevensor, Ramblin' Dave, the Mathman, and the Baron. There was frisbee involved, which was lots of fun, until I discovered that my increasingly sedentary lifestyle has rendered me incapable of prolonged amounts of running. (Throwing---good. Catching---good. Running---Not so much.) Thankfully, a quick trip to a newly opened local brew pub was all it took to revive my spirits. Then it was off to the bowling alley where, it was Weekend Glo-Bowling [TM]. That's right...turn on the black lights and the really loud, poorly chosen assortment of late 90s songs, it's time to rock...and bowl...in that order. Bowling is not something I consider myself particularly good at, but my girlfriend owns her own bowling ball, which although she did not bring it on the plane, speaks well of her bowling ability. And two of the three games we played, she kicked everyone else in our lane to the gutter. In the third game however, I pulled off one of the best bowling games of my life complete with...you guessed it...an honest-to-goodness turkey for Thanksgiving. (That's 3 strikes in a row for those of you not hip with the bowling lingo.) I wish I could tell exactly how I did it, but in the frames that followed, I found that the more I tried to figure out how to bowl well, the less well I actually bowled. So the key is to follow the sage advice of Chevy Chase in Caddyshack and just...be the ball. (Na-na-na-na-na...)
On Saturday morning, we packed up the Benmobile and drove home, stopping on the way to visit my alma mater. My girlfriend seemed less than impressed by the rare book library, the gothic architecture, or law school, but agreed with me that the general environment of the campus was more like a college town than where I am currently living. We even got to meet up briefly with the Maestro and more at length with the Scotsman, who is right now in the midst of some sort of super secret Internet related enterprise. It might involve gambling or something else equally exciting...you'll just have to wait and see! The Scotsman, my girlfriend, and I went and grabbed a snack sized serving of Belgian fries (Belgian fries? Belgian fries!) and then we were back on the road. We listened to a comedy CD I borrowed from the local library and decided that Bill Cosby's "Noah" bit, while clever, seemed somewhat overrated, accidentally missed our exit on the parkway, and finally wound up at the single more dilapidated train station I have ever seen. I won't name names here, but if you're the property managers for this particular establishment, pay very close attention: you should not let rent on this place go any lower. The entire main lobby is torn up. The tracks for various train lines are separated by a couple of very sketchy streets. It looked like the train station of the damned...but at least the train we were waiting for arrived on time and we were both able to get home...her by train, me by car.
All in all, an exciting trip, well worth the stress of driving during the Thanksgiving weekend, if for no other reason, then my mother's care package of delicious leftovers which are waiting right now in the Invisible Freezer for another day. Not to mention the chance to spend time with my family and girlfriend. Or the opportunity to see a bunch of friends from the good old days of high school. Not everyone was around, but it was still good to catch up. After all, face to face conversations are sporadic these days and although I can post on the blog, that can be somewhat impersonal. Especially when one updates as infrequently as I do.
Hopefully, I'll be able to remedy at least that last point in the coming weeks. After all, December's nearly here, and longtime readers know what that means. And if you aren't a long time reader, well...you'll just have to wait and see.
Well folks, it looks like the holidays are here again. Of course by now, all of the obvious clues are in place. The drugstore's Halloween candy aisles are now stocked with absurd amounts of peppermint and gingerbread. Main streets across America are now ever so slightly brighter thanks to the magic of holiday lighting arrangements. Hell, they did a news story this morning (on NPR, no less!) about the history of the Charlie Brown Christmas Special! Yes, that magical time of year is here, and what better way to start the winter shopping season than with some good old fashioned gluttony?
Yes, Thanksgiving...that most hallowed of holidays! Where gluttony is sanctioned and self-control takes a breather. And what better way for the Invisible Ben to spend the long weekend his school provided him than with the family he rarely see far from Old Ivy University and the drudgery of graduate school life? The only thing that could possibly equal that level of excitement would be spending the break with his girlfriend. (Who, I fully acknowledge, merits a better nickname than The Invisible Girlfriend, as she is quite visible and not at all a figment of my imagination.) Now imagine combining those two things together. I'll set up the equation for you. Ready?
Math Quiz
1. Thanksgiving dinner with the family + First visit with girlfriend to the Invisible Homestead = _____________
Ok, put your pencils down. I'll be collecting your papers in a moment. But first, a quick reminder that there are many possible right and wrong answers...but ultimately only one correct one. But since understanding how you figure out the answer is what's important, I suppose I'll have to recap the important details.
So my girlfriend lives about an hour south of me and the original plan was that we would travel to the Invisible Homestead together either by car or train. The tricky part was determining when to leave. I have no class on Wednesdays (or any other day of the week, depending on who you ask) this semester so it would be reasonable for me to leave here on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, my girlfriend is stuck teaching at Underwood and despite the perenially low attendance numbers the day before Thanksgiving, she still felt this annoying desire to go teach underprivileged youth. After mutually cursing her high sense of moral integrity and her commitment to education, we agreed that we would have to leave on Wednesday night, despite its inauspicious reputation as a miserable travel day.
But then, in a phone conversation confirming our plans, the Invisible Mom came up with a cunning plan. What if instead of driving up together, I drove up independently on Tuesday? The major travel day is Wednesday...not Thursday. What if my girlfriend could arrange for alternate transportation?
Which, of course, was what ended up happening. I drove up on Tuesday night, braving only moderate traffic, and my girlfriend arranged for a one-way plane ticket for Thursday morning. This worked out remarkably well, allowing me to get a little of my endless grad school reading done on Wednesday so that I could spend time with family and friends the remainder of the weekend.
So the travel arrangements worked out well, but what about the rest of the trip? Well, once I had adjusted to the renovations in the kitchen (a non-magnetic refrigerator door? strange new floor tiles? a tap providing instant boiling water in the sink?) and got reacquainted with the family dog, things generally went pretty well. I think my girlfriend gets along better with my family than I do. The whole batch of them certainly enjoyed conspiring against me when we played Trivial Pursuit, although their efforts ultimately proved futile. What's more, Mom outdid herself with the dinner, which in addition to the traditional turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie included her famous pineapple kugel. My girlfriend, who had never had kugel before, was fascinated by this new, yet strangely tasty, dish, and would later wonder why it had never caught on with the general public the same way blintzes and other such fare had. I didn't have an answer, although Mom said that she would provide the recipe should my girlfriend wish to make it herself or have her boyfriend make it for her. How very generous of her.
Despite the miserable weather on Thursday, I did have time to give my girlfriend a tour of the Invisible Hometown over the following two days and she got to meet a bunch of the Old Guard including the Caseator, Throat, Sevensor, Ramblin' Dave, the Mathman, and the Baron. There was frisbee involved, which was lots of fun, until I discovered that my increasingly sedentary lifestyle has rendered me incapable of prolonged amounts of running. (Throwing---good. Catching---good. Running---Not so much.) Thankfully, a quick trip to a newly opened local brew pub was all it took to revive my spirits. Then it was off to the bowling alley where, it was Weekend Glo-Bowling [TM]. That's right...turn on the black lights and the really loud, poorly chosen assortment of late 90s songs, it's time to rock...and bowl...in that order. Bowling is not something I consider myself particularly good at, but my girlfriend owns her own bowling ball, which although she did not bring it on the plane, speaks well of her bowling ability. And two of the three games we played, she kicked everyone else in our lane to the gutter. In the third game however, I pulled off one of the best bowling games of my life complete with...you guessed it...an honest-to-goodness turkey for Thanksgiving. (That's 3 strikes in a row for those of you not hip with the bowling lingo.) I wish I could tell exactly how I did it, but in the frames that followed, I found that the more I tried to figure out how to bowl well, the less well I actually bowled. So the key is to follow the sage advice of Chevy Chase in Caddyshack and just...be the ball. (Na-na-na-na-na...)
On Saturday morning, we packed up the Benmobile and drove home, stopping on the way to visit my alma mater. My girlfriend seemed less than impressed by the rare book library, the gothic architecture, or law school, but agreed with me that the general environment of the campus was more like a college town than where I am currently living. We even got to meet up briefly with the Maestro and more at length with the Scotsman, who is right now in the midst of some sort of super secret Internet related enterprise. It might involve gambling or something else equally exciting...you'll just have to wait and see! The Scotsman, my girlfriend, and I went and grabbed a snack sized serving of Belgian fries (Belgian fries? Belgian fries!) and then we were back on the road. We listened to a comedy CD I borrowed from the local library and decided that Bill Cosby's "Noah" bit, while clever, seemed somewhat overrated, accidentally missed our exit on the parkway, and finally wound up at the single more dilapidated train station I have ever seen. I won't name names here, but if you're the property managers for this particular establishment, pay very close attention: you should not let rent on this place go any lower. The entire main lobby is torn up. The tracks for various train lines are separated by a couple of very sketchy streets. It looked like the train station of the damned...but at least the train we were waiting for arrived on time and we were both able to get home...her by train, me by car.
All in all, an exciting trip, well worth the stress of driving during the Thanksgiving weekend, if for no other reason, then my mother's care package of delicious leftovers which are waiting right now in the Invisible Freezer for another day. Not to mention the chance to spend time with my family and girlfriend. Or the opportunity to see a bunch of friends from the good old days of high school. Not everyone was around, but it was still good to catch up. After all, face to face conversations are sporadic these days and although I can post on the blog, that can be somewhat impersonal. Especially when one updates as infrequently as I do.
Hopefully, I'll be able to remedy at least that last point in the coming weeks. After all, December's nearly here, and longtime readers know what that means. And if you aren't a long time reader, well...you'll just have to wait and see.
