Black Friday Shopping?

Not me, thank you very much. I have never ever been Black Friday (or Black Thursday since everyone is opening right after turkey these days) shopping in my life except for that one time. More about that one time later.

I have never been Black Friday shopping for quite a few reasons, the main one being that Black Friday falls towards the end of the month and rent or house payments have always been due at the end of the month and therefore I've never had any money to go Black Friday shopping with. Another reason is that I don't much like shopping anyway and the thought of standing in line for hours and hours and then trampling over people to get into the store when the doors finally open just does not appeal to me. And how many TVs do people need, anyway? I was watching some of the news this morning and people had their carts full of 2, 3 and 4 TVs and what, do they have a TV in each room including the bathroom? And they have to upgrade them each year? I just don't get it.

The whole Black Friday frenzy kind of sickens me, actually. I just hope nobody got killed this year.

Oh, and the one and only time I went Black Friday shopping was totally unintentional. One year after Thanksgiving I got a bug up my you know what to do some heavy duty cleaning and decided to throw away my old nasty plastic trash can and go get a new one. Forgetting that it was Black Friday, I went over to Walmart in Oxnard to get a trash can, and I don't really remember why I didn't just look at the packed parking lot and turn back around, but I had thrown away the old trash can and really needed a new one, so went into Walmart. I stood in line for at least 30 minutes. To buy one plastic trash can.

So, how was our Thanksgiving dinner last night? Kind of sucky, actually. Don't buy the turkey breast and stuffing pre-cooked entree from Trader Joe's. Just don't. And as far as premade mashed sweet potatoes? Yuck. Frozen apple crisp from Vons? Edible, but nothing that I would waste money on again. Next year I will turn over a new leaf and not be so lazy and maybe I'll fix a real dinner. Maybe.

I have a hard time planning any kind of holiday thing, I don't know if it's that seasonal thing or what but I get real annoyed and a little depressed around the holidays. You want to have that picture perfect magazine spread holiday celebration and it just doesn't happen that way because magazine spread holiday celebrations are not real. Instead you are in the kitchen cursing the gravy because it won't thicken or you are frantically whipping potatoes and you are sweating and there aren't enough chairs and the kitchen is a mess and then you finally get everything on the table and it's all over with in about 5 minutes.

 Then you have to clean it all up.

Still Busy

The days just don't seem to be long enough for everything that I want to get done. Along with the usual daily chores I've got my wall washing project in the back of my mind and it's also time to shampoo the carpets again.

Speaking of which. I had shampooed the carpet in the workroom after Harri hacked up hairballs all over the place and of course the very next morning there was another hairball on my freshly shampooed carpet. Like she had planned it that way.

And speaking of cats, I have to call the vet for Genie today, she got clawed on her backside and has an abcess that we thought was healing but maybe not. Bandit from next door keeps sneaking into the backyard trying to get into their shed and into their food and I'm pretty sure he's the one that clawed her. We are thinking of ways to conveniently have Bandit disappear. Not only do they have about a dozen of their own cats next door, every stray in the neighborhood knows to come there looking for food and then they come over here if they can't find any.

We put Lucy in the garage Friday night, we had a cold front come in with wind and rain and she was huddled on the front porch all freaked out and won't use her expensive new house that we bought her. See here:

Her expensive new house that came in a box and you put it together yourself, so Keith added insulation to it and put sealant on it and all kinds of other stuff and we might as well just have given her the cardboard box that it came in for all the use it's getting out there. I'm thinking we will bring it in the house for the other cats to play in real soon here.

Anyway, we brought her into the garage and blocked the cat door into the garage where Buddy couldn't peek through the hole, gave her some food and water and a litter box and she spent the night in relative comfort out of the rain and wind. So, we've got it figured out now what to do with her when the weather is bad or we aren't going to be home to feed her.

Like on Thanksgiving when we will drive down to Camarillo to have dinner at Katie's house. She is hosting her first Thanksgiving in her little (and I mean LITTLE) house and I'm really wondering where everyone is going to sit but maybe it will be nice enough to sit outside on lawn chairs or something. Did I mention that her house is LITTLE? Smaller or about the same size as ours and I know we wouldn't have room for a bunch of people.

Oh, and you know how people like to take those fall foilage drives to look at the turning leaves and all? I didn't have to go for a drive to see turning leaves, I noticed while in the Winco parking lot that all of their trees are turning and really look pretty, so if you just kind of tune out the asphalt and all of the other cars and the shopping carts you could pretend that you are on a scenic fall foilage drive.