1 Day. 15 People. 25 Pounds of Turkey.

Of obvious note: I changed the layout a bit. I needed to search for a specific label just now but couldn’t because I never bothered to add my labels list to the page. When I went to do that, the template I was using only allowed me to add the list to the right side of the page. I am unnaturally (and possibly even disturbingly) particular about what side things go on. OCD? Probably. Psychotic? Maybe. Easier to find labels now? Definitely.

Moving on.

I just realized that I completely and totally failed to do any sort of Thanksgiving update. Hell, I failed to even mention Thanksgiving more than once (label searching!).

I made decent progress on my research paper today, so I suppose I have a few moments to give an update about my Thanksgiving week, which featured 3 visitors, frozen yogurt, and a 25 lb. turkey. Plus a bunch of other stuff, obviously.

Two of my sisters flew in the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I immediately took them to be baptized into the world of In-N-Out Burger, which is conveniently located between the airport and my apartment. First stop after that was Venice Beach. We saw more old men in Speedos than I have ever seen before. We walked around for a little bit, then decided that a grocery store run would be a good idea. Stocked up on beer, chocolate, and guacamole (family essentials), we were ready for a movie night with a few of my friends. I suggested (/insisted) that we watch When Harry Met Sally. Never a bad choice.

I had class on Monday and Tuesday, so my sisters were on their own. As luck would have it, one of my younger sister’s friends from back home was also in L.A. visiting someone. The friend’s someone had to work all day Monday and Tuesday, so the friend was available to show my sisters around Hollywood. My older sister’s friend also flew in on Monday night to spend a few days with us.

Tuesday night, I drove up to the hotel right after class. I found my sisters+friend boozin’ it up in the lounge. Well, one sister was boozin’ it up, the others were watching her booze it up.

Wednesday we drove up to Burbank to take a tour of NBC Studios. Interesting tour…mostly centered around Days of Our Lives…but I did get to see Nancy O’Dell’s parking space. And the parking space where Jay Leno used to park his car. Which is really not that exciting. From there, we made a beeline for Santa Monica. By “made a beeline,” I mean that we sat in traffic for about an hour. I would never let my sisters miss out on that little piece of L.A. living.

We finally made it to Santa Monica, tired and starving. We immediately found somewhere to eat on the 3rd Street Promenade, at which point I thought it would be a good idea to eat a whole individual (8 slices) barbeque chicken pizza by myself. Best idea I’ve ever had. Seriously.

As we walked down to the water, I realized that we were there at prime sunset time. It was gorgeous. I couldn’t have picked a better view for out-of-towners to see!





We took a little jaunt down the pier before heading back up to the Promenade for frozen yogurt. They have this frozen yogurt place out here called Pinkberry, and apparently I just missed the initial craze by a few months or so. I’ve had more than one person describe the growth of the chain by telling me the expansion (in SoCal at least) was similar to that of Starbucks. Yikes…that’s a lot of frozen yogurt. Basically, you choose your yogurt flavor (original, coconut, pomegranate, or passionfruit) then you pick your choice of unlimited toppings, among them a million chopped fresh fruits, different kinds of chocolate, nuts, granola, mochi, and if I remember correctly, Fruity Pebbles and Cinnamon Toast Crunch (pardon me, “cinnamon squares”). I had an original with raspberries, mango, pomegranate seeds, and mochi. I’m not usually a big frozen yogurt eater, but it was quite amazing.

And then it was Thursday…

Since many of the first-year students in my program weren’t going home for break, we decided to have a big potluck dinner. We were anticipating somewhere between 15 and 20 people, so the guy who volunteered to do the turkey got a 25 lb. bird. I got up on Thursday morning and did some documentation of the events – the turkey cooking, the boys in the host apartment doing last minute cleaning, etc. I drove up to the hotel, retrieved my sisters+friend, and came back to do my part – green bean casserole. The friend had to fly out that afternoon, so when I got home from taking her to the airport, we were mostly ready to get started with dinner! We had all the classics – turkey (duh), stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, potatoes au gratin, green bean casserole, baked mac’n’cheese, corn pudding, and cranberry sauce. The Chinese guy made something called double eggs, which was like a little casserole made with chicken eggs and duck eggs, and it was really good! It was his first American Thanksgiving, so it was fun to see him experiencing all the food. Add in the many bottles (and boxes) of wine, and of course pumpkin, pecan, and apple pies for dessert, and it was a great meal.

I Used To Be With It, But Then They Changed What "It" Was

Seeing as I don’t have classes on Wednesdays, I usually go to bed on Tuesday nights with the most sincere intentions of spending all of the next day at the library working on my research paper, my story for my final production project, my weekly screenwriting assignment, and/or my final screenwriting project.

So this past Wednesday I got up, enjoyed my coffee and breakfast, watched a little TV, and…went to the beach.

I know I briefly mentioned some time spent at Venice Beach back in October. To quote myself – Venice is an interesting place...we decided that it was sort of like being transported back in time. Remember those days of the hippie-revival in the early-mid 90s? Still going on in Venice, CA.

Honestly that’s really the best way to sum it up. Imagine the early 90s grunge/skater look, existing peacefully alongside the current punk/skater look (skinny jeans, chunky skater shoes, weird hair). So just put all those things together in your head – skateboarders weaving through crowds of people, school-age children with no parental supervision in sight, barefoot hippies, Muscle Beach, persistent musicians trying to sell you their hip-hop cds, and the smell of pot wafting on the breeze and voilà! Venice.

The image of Venice as a throwback to bygone years was only solidified when my friends and I heard a song blasting from a nearby store and found ourselves instinctively responding - “Heyyyy, must be the moneyyyy.” Oh, Nelly…it's 2009 and apparently we still want to ride wit you.

As we sat outside our favorite spot (the place with hand-dipped corndogs, obviously), there were several things going on.

I was stealing glances at the hippies who had set up camp at the nearby intersection of the boardwalk and a path to the beach. Among their signs: “will work for marijuana,” “help a punk buy drugs,” “anything helps - even just a smile, namaste,” and my personal favorite, taking a turn for the entrepreneurial, “kick me in the ass for $1.” Also, the lone female hippie was literally wearing a bandanna for a top.

The other group catching our attention was a band of young teenage skaters, probably 13-14 years old. They were laughing and talking loudly, trying like teenagers do to own their little bit of space in a place crowded with personalities. When this group left, they were replaced by a slightly younger group of tween-age skaters. Skinny jeans, v-neck shirts, lovingly tattered skate shoes, and hair hanging over their eyes (with the exception of one, who had a downright magnificent mane of beautiful curly hair). They were scarfing down slices of pizza in the way that only boys that age can.

My friends and I are all in the 24-27 age range and sitting near these kids made us realize something a little shocking. We have apparently reached the age where we feel strange around teenagers. We weren’t scared, we didn’t get up and sit somewhere else, we didn’t think they were going to cause trouble or anything silly like that. We were just very aware of their presence. I guess what struck us most was that, rather than feeling like we identified with them, we were wondering where their parents were.

I guess we're getting old.

My Knowledge Will Bite Your Face Off.

This weekend felt unusually long, which was nice after a week that felt unusually torturous. Without going into too much detail, I will just say that one of our classes is causing a good bit of frustration and misery for all of us. But we will survive. We must survive. End of semester course evaluations will free our souls. Vengeance will be ours.

Since we don't have Friday classes, our weekend begins on Thursday night when our class is over at 7. A group of us made a beeline for the liquor store and went home to drown our sorrows and spend some quality time with our friend television (teacher! mother! secret lover...)

We watched the second episode of FlashFoward, which unfortunately didn't really hold our interest like the first episode did. I know what you're thinking - how many tv shows can keep the attention of a room full of drunk grad students? But you're forgetting - we're television-obsessed drunk grad students.

Then some folks watched The Office, which I don't watch. I know. Just don't even say it, because I know.

Then...the best new show of the fall...Community. Please see the title of the post, spoken by a Spanish professor to his class. Great show. You should all watch it.

At some point during one of the shows, my roommate, the only non-film/television student in the room, asked what everyone thought about the Roman Polanski situation. She immediately regretted that decision. As soon as the words came out of her mouth, everyone started talking at once and a boisterous conversation lasted for the entire commercial break. Then we all stopped talking abruptly because the show was back on. That's how we roll.

Speaking of Roman Polanski, we all gathered again on Friday night to watch Chinatown for a class assignment. Interesting movie. I'll probably give my review of it in a future post. My pre-Chinatown time was spent at the library and at In-N-Out, where I investigated the strawberry milkshake (delicious) and acquired an official paper In-N-Out hat.

Saturday, I ventured to Venice with three friends. Venice is an interesting place...we decided that it was sort of like being transported back in time. Remember those days of the hippie-revival in the early-mid 90s? Still going on in Venice, CA. I found it really strange because the whole place seemed sort of frenzied and crazy, but very relaxed at the same time. Very intriguing. The beach was really nice though and the place definitely makes for some top-notch people watching. I also got a downright fantastic corndog. That's a good day in my book.

Today I did mostly nothing. Worked on some assignments, did some reading...speaking of which, I've actually done all the reading for my classes every week so far. Not skimming - reading. All of it. And taking notes. Before the day of class. It's like some sort of alternate universe.

It's getting cooler outside lately. I don't think it got much above 65 today and the 10-day says it's not going to get much above 70 for a while. Tomorrow night they're calling for a near-record low of *gasp* 54 degrees.

In other random news, Mr. California has been sighted several more times. I last saw him in the library. He walked in, disappeared somewhere, then walked out with several girls. His powers are growing.