Raphael's turkey is on fire.
I wrote what I was thankful for on my turkey. Raphael was lame and wouldn't do it.
Then Kit came and made hand turkeys with us!
AWWW, he's doing no-shave November! Also he wrote what he was thankful on his turkey.
Wait...
Yeah, when I looked away Raphael did this.
I originally had wanted to make a bunch more turkeys, write down stuff like Thanksgiving recipes and addresses to places that were serving Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless like this, but we didn't have enough time and it was already dark outside. Instead, we gave the turkeys to Joe, who hung them on the front door of the coffee shop. Yay! I wish I'd gotten a picture of it, but I was rather drunk when we returned to Nostalgia later that night.
After Nostalgia, we (Kit, Raphael, and I) headed out to Brewvies, a brewery/bar/pool hall/movie theater that's super cheap for students. I've never been and was really excited to go, since it's sort of a staple for University of Utah students. We ordered a pitcher of Hefferveisen and some nachos to share and then headed to the theater.
Kit made fun of me for taking this picture, but you know what? I'm a documentarian. Or something. I like to take pictures of ALL THE THINGS. The silver mug with the lemon on top of it was full of "coffee" (coughvodkapinklemonadecough).
We saw 50/50, which is a touching/funny/sad movie about a guy who finds out he has a giant, cancerous tumor along his spine (Joseph Gordon Levitt aka Jeff as Raphael calls him). Basically I got really drunk drinking beer and then shot after shot of the vodka lemonade. There was one incredibly special moment where I started trying to open up the mug after I was done with my beer, but no matter how hard I tried to turn it, it wouldn't budge. So I handed it to Kit, who also couldn't get it to open at all. This is when it was handed to Raphael, who discovered that it was upside down and easily popped off the lid. We had spent the last five minutes trying to open the bottom side of a mug.
Since I was so drunk, I cried. A lot. There was one part especially SPOILER ALERT when JGL is in Seth Brogan's house (his best friend who he just accused of not caring that he had cancer) and he sees a book on dealing with a loved one getting cancer that Seth had carefully annotated and I just started BAWLING END SPOILER. Anyways, it was a good movie, I love Brewvies, it was awesome. Then we drove Raphael back to Nostalgia and Kit took me home.
p.s. on the way there and on the way back we just blasted this song. Over and over and over again.
Skip to 0:51 to avoid Rihanna's annoying fake british accent
When I got home I played Super Mario Sunshine for a little while and then tried to read but instead ended up just passing out.
The next morning my grandma grilled me about where I'd been last night (I sort of regretted not telling her that I'd been at a drug orgy) and we had a small breakfast before people started cooking for the day. I spent the morning doing enrichment for my birds (I taped paper over their food dishes and scattered some treats on top to see if they'd be able to break through to their food - don't worry, I uncovered the dishes later that night since Manny had only eaten the corn chip off the top of his and Maeby had made some puncture marks but ultimately failed at getting to her food). I also decided it was high time to clip Manny's flight primaries, as he was getting too good at flying, which means he hurts himself by running into windows.
His ruffled feathers after I clipped his wings. Poor disgruntled boy.
I set up a bomb foraging activity for Manners, but he just sat in the corner ignoring me. I relented and put him in his cage after that. I was on bird care so I went to feed the pigeons their own Thanksgiving dinner. I found this on the roof.
Just kidding, I wrote that.
I returned home to find that my cousin had set up a delicious feast for us.
Mmmm plastic Oreos.
I helped (sort of...well, observed) the ladies in the kitchen (my mam, grandma, aunt, and cousin) and also ate some olives. Okay, a lot of olives.
BANANA VANILLA WAFER PUDDING IS MY FAVORITE OM NOM
My grandma brought homemade crabapple jelly from her magical home of Idaho. Crabapple jelly is the BEST and I love it the most. THE MOST.
Peach Bellini! We made them all morning long (they are peach nectar with champagne and frozen peach slices).
REASON WHY THANKSGIVING RULED NUMBER ONE: My grandmother has always been extremely conservative, a member of the Church of Christ, and a southern lady. Which is why it was hilarious that, when we gave her a peach bellini and she started drinking it (which I was surprised by), she asked, "How much of the good stuff is in here?" Good stuff meaning champagne. Basically I died, it was amazing.
I entertained my little cousins by taking them all on a long walk around the golf course with our dogs while everyone else cooked. It was me, Gabe, Ryder, Jeramy, and little autistic Xander. Xander was originally not invited, but he escaped his captors and ran to us. It was like a touching movie where he ran faster than the gingerbread man across the field towards us, his mother and my mother running after him. I told them that it was okay and I would take him on the walk. Everything was fine until we were halfway around the golf course, when he decided he was going to go back the way we came. I told Jeramy to go after him, who sort of did but ended up just wrestling with him in the grass before losing interest and allowing Xander to wander back even further. So I had to run after him and pick him up, kicking and screaming, and then carry him up the hill I'd just run down and back to our party. It really took a lot out of me, as Xander is incredibly heavy for a three year old. Jeramy told me, as I lowered Xander to the ground and started herding him towards the house, that I would make a really great mom. Thanks ten year old cousin! We finally arrived back at the house, where Xander began playing with dog toys.
REASON WHY THANKSGIVING RULED NUMBER TWO: Xander was playing with one of Taffy's dog bones and, at one point, he offered one to Taffy. Just as she was about to take it from him, he yanked it away from her and jammed it into his own mouth while he growled.
THEN DINNER WAS SERVED! YUMMMMMMM!
REASON WHY THANKSGIVING RULED NUMBER THREE: At one point during the meal, my cousin remarked, "Hey look at that pretty bird!" I turned around to see what she was talking about and saw two magpies on our patio table, eating our pumpkin pies we'd set out there to cool. I leapt up from my seat (since apparently my cousin couldn't be bothered to) and opened the door to shoo them away. For the most part, the pies were intact except for parts of the crust that had been picked away and a giant hole in the middle of one of the pies. Woops.
The rest of the evening was spent forcing turkey, mashed potatoes, and rolls into my mouth, washing dishes to make up for the fact that I didn't really help cook anything, and then taking a luxurious, tryptophan-induced, post Thanksgiving dinner nap. After the nap, we indulged in a family tradition as old as time.
Christmas Vacation. One of our favorite movies that we always watch on the eve of Thanksgiving to welcome the Christmas season and to prepare ourselves for the Christmas season. I loved it, all comfy cozy as a family and watching one of our favorite movies together, laughing at all the jokes we know by heart.
REASON WHY THANKSGIVING RULED NUMBER FOUR: When we got upstairs, we found this...
...WHAT?! My mom was like, "Um, I think a dog ate our pie" and I was like, "No, that was the magpies" but then she showed it to me. Not a magpie's work. We're pretty sure it was my aunt's boxer, but apparently pumpkin pie was not meant to be on this Thanksgiving.
The rest of the night was spent eating more rolls and possibly playing more video games. I can't really remember. At 4 AM the next morning I woke up, ran to the bathroom, and threw up all of the food I'd eaten the day before. I spent the rest of the morning super sick with some weird stomach bug, finally going back to bed at about 7 AM and then waking up again at 8 to be sick some more. The entire day I was sick. It was very sad. Especially since it was the last football game of the season, my last Muss football game of senior year. I was really upset. Basically there's nothing left to say except FUCK YOU STOMACH BUG. To make it worse, I had to go do bird care where I found all of my bosses at the lab, who asked me if I knew anything about the game. RUB IT IN, WHY DON'T YOU???!!!
Saturday, however, was much better. Luckily the sickness was only a 24 hour thing, so I felt energetic and happy. I slept in and then chilled for awhile, doing necessary chores like bird care and then cleaned my earrings (a dull and somewhat gross job).
I'm restless lately. I get bored doing things I used to be able to do for hours, such as watch Netflix or surf sites like Tumblr. Now I want to actually go outside, do things. This sounds like a no-brainer, but I really did used to be incredibly content just holding up in my room in front of my heater and spending hours on my laptop. Now I can only do it if I've tuckered myself out by doing something active or being outside.
I was beginning to feel this longing to be outside. So I was inspired by one of my favorite blogs and went for a drive. I put on my hiking boots (with my lovely skinny jeans, looking fly), grabbed my camera, and drove up Emigration Canyon, which is a canyon five minutes from my house.
I made shadow puppets of evil looking moose.
I used the self timer on my camera to take failed jumping pictures in a gravelly truck pullout.
At the end of the road, I found a watershed. I went into the mountains to find a forest to frolic in, but still ended up getting drawn to a body of water. Proof that they are magnetic to me.
In the parking lot there was a large group of rowdy frat boys throwing giant rocks off the side of the hill, which seems to me to be pretty dangerous, so I quickly hurried in the opposite direction.
More awesome self timer shots for Otter.
I was excited for a second because dogs aren't allowed at the watershed (since we, you know, drink out of it) so I thought it was some other form of canid, but I realized it was probably dog footprints. It was muddy.
(sadly I think I'll have to pay for a photo hosting website that doesn't sap the quality from the pictures, because these leaves were GLOWING GOLD)
There was LITTER at the watershed! People, THIS IS YOUR DRINKING WATER! Do you not understand? I hauled it out, as well as a half-eaten blueberry Airhead and a water bottle (that one I dragged halfway across the lake and then took home to recycle).
I ventured closer to the shore, foregoing woods for water, and found the slimy, mossy mud frozen over in some places.
I looked out into the water and what did I see but coots! All of the pictures I got of them are absolutely horrendous, but still! COOTLETS!
Eye-watering water sparkles <3
Even the bubbles from the water in the mud had frozen over! Ice bubbles! I poked a few of them.
Coots running into the water.
At this point my shoes were very muddy. I realized I should probably make my way up the sloping incline to the dry woods before I fell (which was becoming increasingly likely the more I dabbled in the danger zone) and so I trekked it up the mud slope, squelching and managing to keep my shoes on.
I saw that to my left, there was a huge expanse of fields filled with trees that probably led all the way up to the mountain. I saw this golden patch awaiting me at the far end of the field with one tree beaming in the sunlight and decided to go to it.
I have gaussian blurred it for a) your convenience and b) I am just barely getting the hang of photoshop manipulation and love gaussian blur.
As I walked through the corridor, trees on either side of me, I felt relatively safe. As soon as I got into the open field however, my heart froze. I'm not lying or trying to make this dramatic, it's completely true. Let's have a little biology lesson, shall we? There is a general (ish) rule that predators usually have their eyes positioned on the front of their head, so they're only really able to see straight ahead of them with limited peripheral vision. The exception is sharks, which I'm not sure why their eyes aren't on the front of their heads (maybe due to water refraction or something) and also primates. Prey, on the other hand, have eyes positioned on either side of their head so that they have maximum viewing of their surroundings. They can see basically everything around them except for a tiny portion in the back and tiny portion straight in front of them. This is so they can watch out for predators and hopefully not be eaten. Humans are primates, and so our eyes are positioned at the front of our heads so we can see straight in front of us. Though primates are not really hunting predators, humans definitely are. However, despite us being (basically) at the top of the food chain and being predators, I always feel like a prey item. When I was doing birdcare the entire week, I would exit a room with my eyes straight ahead, so I could detect movement in my peripheral vision on both sides of me just in case something was going to ATTACK me. I did the same thing in this open field. I thought back to Bambi (which I always do when going into an open field) and carefully scanned the environment before cautiously stepping into the light and then bounding happily through the grass.
Part of me wanted to venture further into the fields and trees beyond my golden field, but the other part of me thought of the book The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and decided against it, especially since the sun was beginning to set. Instead I headed back and looped further around the lake, wanting to explore one last area I had seen from afar before heading back permanently.
Tricksy seeds.
After making my way through this minefield of burs, I found something AMAZING.
A SECRET HAVEN.
It was like a tiny little island that had sunk into the ground and was surrounded by a ring of protective trees, to keep it secret. There were tiny networks of streams and ponds surrounding the bramble filled island, that reminded me of Make Way For Ducklings. It was my dreamworld. I immediately leapt into it (aka made my way along an extremely muddy path that looped down and then leapt the remaining few feet into it.
Then I was met with a problem. There was an icy stream in between me and a way out of the secret island. It was not particularly deep, but I also still had a half hour hike back to my car with the sun setting and the temperature dropping. I didn't want soaked socks or shoes.
So I crossed the stream on two extremely slippery and icy logs. It is amazing that I didn't just plummet into the water right then and there.
But I made it.
I still had one more stream to cross before I could scramble up the hill back to the watershed. I got down on all fours and crossed the stream on loose rocks and logs with three points of contact at all times. Then I squeezed myself through a narrow crook in a tree and was met with dry land.
My lovely baggy skinny jeans/muddy hiking boots/uncombed hair/glasses look.
As I was walking through the woods on the way back, I heard crashing noises. At first I thought it was a small child jumping up and down in place, but then saw a buck bounding through the trees away from me. I smiled and then continued on my way when I saw THE MOST PERFECT PICTURE OPPORTUNITY EVER. There were three does standing in front of me, perfectly silhouetted against the lake in the sunset. I scrambled for my camera, but just as I got it out and turned on I turned to find that they had left. FUUUUUUUUU! I was pissed. I continued down the path and saw them running back towards the golden fields and secret haven. Oh well.
(I love this picture)
The frat boys were gone (though they'd ingrained their insignias into the parking lot with something) and my heart stopped when I saw a sign that read FEE AREA and ALL OTHER VEHICLES WILL BE TOWED. I showed my body the meaning of haste and plowed up the rest of the trail, grateful to see my car fine and dandy at the top. I slid into the car and turned on the heat, making my way back down the canyon. It wasn't until my cheeks began to tingle unpleasantly that I realized that it was really, really cold outside.
When I got back home I changed into sweats and we picked up Hire's.
SO DELICIOUS! Then we watched a depressing cancer movie (cancer movies were the theme of this weekend, apparently) with my mom, Death Becomes Her, and an episode of Castle while we ate burgers and then I played around on Photoshop with making my pictures pretty.
I was really pleased with how some of these turned out. Basically I am in love with making oceans into rainbows and wish this was real life.
Taffy finds ways to be the most comfortable.
I'm jealous of how comfy she looks sometimes.
Sunday was spent doing laundry, picking up my room, moving the gamecube back into my room so I could play it some more (since my cousins had been playing it in the laundry room on Thanksgiving), and watching 30 Rock. Then I did birdcare, picked up Natal from the airport, and we hung out for a little while with the birds before she packed up and headed home. The rest of the weekend was spent doing homework because it is crunch time. I won't have much time for adventures until it's all over :( But Thanksgiving weekend was just what I needed, it was awesome.
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