chicago '08

it's that time of year again. time for me to start bitching and moaning about wasting money on useless things for people. I really don't want to celebrate Jesus' birthday by buying $20 gender-specific gifts without a particular recipient in mind. I hate that game where everyone fights over the gifts, which are always malodorous (candles, lotions, potpourri), offensive (playboy calendars), or just plain silly (aluminium can crusher). I always want to end up with the items we purchased, packed and hauled for 1000 miles. but no, my purchases end up with some jerks who don't really want a new scarf or a mag lite because they'd rather smell like artificial raspberries or whatever. ugh!

it may not be evident from my current level of crabbiness, but we had a great thanksgiving. we had planned on volunteering at a restaurant that serves homeless and working poor families for the holiday. they had too many volunteers, though, so we just cooked all day. we made homemade bread, brussels sprouts, lentil loaf (which is not as disgusting as it sounds), braised baby onions, and a flourless chocolate cake with cinnamon whipped cream. for some reason the grocery store was like some kind of pick up joint on thursday afternoon. we go to this grocery store all the time, and it's not usually a problem. on thanksgiving, though, any time I strayed more than 2 feet from Hugsband, some creepy guy would appear and start talking to me. Hugsband had a similar problem with the ladies. weird. I didn't realize that we had become so hot with the 50-year old yankee set.

(when I typed "yankee", I accidentally spelled it "yankakee".)