Racing And Eating - My Kind Of Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving Day.  Mine has been great!  It started off with a 5k race in Pensacola Beach this morning and ended tonight with a very delicious meal cooked mostly by the Murph.  He cooked turkey, his grandma's famous stuffing and I made a green bean casserole.  We kept it simple this year since it's just the three of us.  We picked up The Boy from college yesterday.

Check out the turkey below if you can see it under the overflowing stuffing.  The Murph went a little out of control with the stuffing.

Phantom came with us and is a surprisingly good traveler.  He was in the carrier for about 6 hours with no complaints.  Here he is on his back doing his dead bug pose and chilling in the back seat of the car.

I registered for the race last minute this morning about 10 minutes before the race start and they were out of t shirts already.  Disappointing, but then I placed first in my age group and got this medal so I was very happy.  A t shirt would have been nice though.  I am collecting all my race t shirts from the past 14 years of racing and plan on getting a quilt made with some of my favorites one day.

There were several turkey trot races today.  Hope everyone got a chance to do one before the big feast.

Thanksgiving With The Boy

It has been a very laid back Thanksgiving weekend.  The Boy was here from college and that was nice.  He forgot to bring his dirty laundry so I didn't have to wash for him.  I hope he has enough clothes to last until after finals in a few weeks!  Phantom, who has been very good with the other cats, suddenly started acting out and going after poor Ed again.  We had to squirt Phantom so many times he stayed wet most of the weekend.  He is exhausted, sleeping under the Christmas tree now.  He also pooped on the living room couch where Ed hangs out.  I guess he was making a territorial statement.  I put aluminum foil on the couch to keep him from pooping on it.  The vet advised me to do that when he pooped last summer on the same couch and in Ed's favorite antique chair.

The Murph and I got all the outside lights hung and the wreath and the garland put up.  I got all the trees up and decorated so I think that's it,  that's enough for sure!  It's going to be party time at the Murph's house this month.  We plan on having a party for friends and then family over Christmas Day and I told the Boy he could have a party with his friends if he wants too.  One of his best friend's moved to California a few months ago and the Boy said if he had a party, I would have to fly the friend here from California.  I thought that was way sweet, but a little expensive just for a Christmas party!

The Boy somehow gets me to "help" him write papers and do book reports, but flying someone cross country is an entirely different thing.   The Boy saved up a lot of homework for me to help him with this weekend too.  I had to help him come up with ideas for 30 journal entries and then expand on some of them.  I didn't help him with all of it because that's his work.  I've been to college.  Then I helped him do a book report on a book I had never read and will never read.  It is a 700 page reference type book on Human-computer interactions and task analysis.  Can it get more boring?  I think I did pretty darn good on the report ideas though.  He was impressed that I could come up with so much to write about in such a short time.  Now he has no excuses.  He has plenty of ideas to take back to school and write about since I've gotten him started.  I just hope he turns it in!

Can't wait until Christmas break when he's back home again.  I miss him!

Thanksgiving and Christmas Decorating With The Jazz Cats

Today was Christmas decorating day.  We still haven't eaten our Thanksgiving dinner, but we got a lot of decorating completed.  Last year I had a tree in every room in my house, all with their own themes.  This year I am living at the Murph's house so it was a little more difficult trying to figure out where to put everything.  All my decorations were bought for my house with a space in mind.  Here at the Murph's house I had to improvise.

We used most of my trees, but not one in every room.  He has way too many rooms that we never even use.  I put up four big trees, one in the living room, one in the office, one in the dining room, one in the family room and one in the Boy's room.  My 9 ft tree didn't fit under the Murph's 8 1/2 ft ceiling, but we got it in there anyway.  The top is a little tipped over to one side, but maybe nobody will notice....

I added my Christmas village houses with the Murph's and we have quite a little village, complete with an ice skating rink, a snow skiing mountain, library, toy shop, church, Irish pub (for my piss drunk Irishman), train station, country inn and another Victorian house and golf shop.  Sparkling "snow" is all over the house now.  I had some stuck to my forehead when I woke up this morning.

The cats LOVE all the trees.  Each one has their favorite that they are sleeping under.  They haven't tried to climb them yet which is good.  Phantom is to big, Ed and Boo too old and Cadence knows better.  Ed and Boo like the tree that's in the living room best because that room is their usual hangout anyway.  They were all over the place while I was putting them up and decorating them, especially Phantom.  He had to supervise everything.  I guess the trees meet with his approval.

We have lights outside along with garland, a blowup Santa and a blowup snowman, but the lights are not set to techno music like I had hoped.  I think we are doing good if we get the icicle lights hung over the porch roof.  Dancing lights set to music is just out of our expertise.  Phantom couldn't get outside to supervise us although he certainly tried.  He's an indoor only cat.

Now it is time to relax and wait on the turkey to finish cooking so we can eat Thanksgiving dinner.  We are having turkey, the Murph's grandmother's secret stuffing recipe, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls and apple pie.  For the Jazz Cats, turkey for Phantom and Fancy Feast chicken florentine for the rest of them.

The jazz cats are very thankful that it is Thanksgiving too.  I asked each of them what they are most thankful for and here's what the said.  Phantom is very thankful for turkey and dressing and that his boy's home from college for the holiday.  Cadence is thankful that he didn't get squirted with water today like Phantom did for going after Ed.   Ed is thankful that Phantom didn't catch him and bite him today and that he gets to hangout under a really cool tree with a nice fluffy, soft tree skirt.  Boo is just thankful to be alive and able to eat soft food everyday.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Jazz Cats.