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Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2002 - 7:11 p.m.

Thanksgiving recap

Yeah, so I'm not ready to be back at work. No, sir.

Here's the roundup, because as enjoyable a holiday as it was, there wasn't much action. Which was good.

Wednesday

On a day that overwhelmingly felt like the day before a holiday, I did little work other than packing up my desk for the move to the new office. (Those of us in The Annex were moved over the weekend into The Home Office.) I told Alyssa that I'm still mired in that school mindset that the day before a holiday is a throwaway day. Wednesday was close enough: I was let go about 4:15, and Casey had told me 45 minutes earlier that she could leave whenever.

We made it to my parents' in an hour and 15 minutes, even with the traffic we found ourselves in as we avoided the really bad traffic. Casey met more of my family ��Uncle John (mom's brother), Aunt Barb, cousins Kate and Chris ��plus mom's cousins Jeff and Karen from California (and Karen's husband Dave). I hadn't seen Kate in a year and a half, before she left for her junior year of high school abroad in Brazil. In fact, the last time I saw Kate was a month or so before I met Casey.

We had dinner and desert and played Cranium and then went to Brian's parents' to see him and the other scattered members of the high school crew who were assembled there.

We had to go to Matt's parents' house to sleep, though, because my folks' was overcrowded with all the relatives there (Karen and Dave were even shipped out to a hotel).

Thursday

We had breakfast and chatted with Sue, Bob and Christy (and Jamison, the hyper dog) before hitting the cold road just before 8 a.m. After one stop at a crowded Pennsylvania Turnpike rest area, we made it to Johnstown by 2 p.m. Casey drove from the rest area on, so I dozed for 20 minutes and enjoyed watching western PA roll by (as I wrote on Sunday).

Although we were told dinner would be served around 2, it wasn't until about 4 p.m. that we sat down. Dinner was tasty, and I had enough turkey, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing and rolls with my first heaping that I couldn't even take seconds. And I was eyeing the corn. The rolls were quite yummy too.

After dinner we played Trivial Pursuit with Casey's cutthroat dad taking the first two games (we played the fast version, in which any right question earned a pie piece) but I used a four-question-correct streak to win the third. We went downstairs and watched Galaxy Quest and I barely kept my eyes open after 11 p.m.

Friday

While Jim spent hours taking first Tessa's and then Casey's cars to the service center, Carol and Casey made pounds of biscotti and I watched hours of college football ��Texas/Texas A&M, Colorado/Nebraska, Arizona/Arizona State. Casey and I did go for a walk around the neighborhood and to the Inclined Plane before showering for dinner at the Back Door.

I got really drunk on wine and don't want to talk about it (though it was a good time, up until bedtime).

Saturday

On the road by 11, we made it to Greensburg by noon and stood outside the door while Moom called to Tessa to let us in. Moom was still dressing or putting on makeup or something and Tessa was still in bed. Or something.

Oh, that Moom.

We had fabulous quesadillas for lunch and chilled around the hiz-ouse until Casey and I went to see Harry Potter. I loved the flying car. Back at the house, we gave ourselves backaches by kneeling on the floor leaning over a puzzle of Cape Cod. I watched Notre Dame in between eating dinner and dessert and doing the puzzle and then turned it off when it got ridiculous (and painful). Casey and I, apparently, stayed up until 1:30 finishing the Cape Cod puzzle.

Sunday

After breakfast we shooed Tessa back to college and headed west ourselves ��Moom, Casey and me ��to Pittsburgh to go to the Carnegie museums on the Pitt campus. We strolled through the art museum and then into the natural history museum, where the first complete T-rex skeleton now stands. It was originally in New York, but came to Pittsburgh before World War II because of fears that a German bombing of NYC would destroy one of the best fossil finds ever made.

After the museum we ate at Lu Lu's and I couldn't convince anyone ��including our waitress ��that I did enjoy my chicken-and-noodles-and-various-other-things, even though I did leave a lot. Moom was convinced I didn't have enough to eat and decided I was ordering a pizza when we got home. Instead, a few hours later (in time for The Simpsons), we made nachos. Yum!

On the way home we stopped at Starbucks, where one of their compilation CDs caught my eye. Since Moom had already expressed her displeasure at Casey for revealing that I was getting my very own Foreman Grill for Christmas (from Moom) so I could make hamburgers without contaminating Casey's grill, AND had said she wanted to get me something else that would be a surprise, I brought the CD over to the table to show Casey.

"I'm going to go see if they have that tea I like," Moom said moments later and stood up abruptly.

"Here Moom, why don't you put this back," Casey said.

I flipped through the brochure from the CD rack I'd also brought to the table.

"She's buying that CD for me, isn't she?" I asked.

"Yep," Casey answered.

"Oh, that Moom!"

I did do it on purpose, knowing that Moom was upset Casey had spoiled the surprise. It was fine with me, but I knew it would make her happy to get me something else, so I went with a reasonably priced $11 Starbucks CD.

Monday

A sad morning. I like Casey's family and I love spending time with them. I enjoy western Pennsylvania probably because I didn't grow up there. But I think what really made yesterday sad was that our vacation was over. Casey and I were on the road by 11 a.m. and back in Cliffside by 5:30. If the stupid maintenance guy hadn't tried to back out of our driveway by putting a gash in Casey's car with the corner of his bumper and if I'd remembered that Notre Dame was playing Marquette in basketball on ESPN2 at 7 p.m., it would've been a great Monday night. As it was, she was understandably upset at making it a thousand miles to PA and back without any incidents involving the car hitting another, or even something stationary, only to have it happen in the driveway while we're up in the living room. And ND did crush the No. 10 team in the country 92-71. And The Sopranos was pretty good. But still, just an OK night.

Today

I don't like being back in the Home Office. The Annex was better. As soon as I got here, I had to figure out why a mistake someone else made yesterday was made, while also unpacking my orange moving crate (which wasn't near my desk) and figuring out that my phone wasn't the same extension it was (that's since been fixed). The best part of the day was finding out that our iMacs and iTunes are capable of burning CDs.

So I'm bringing in some blank ones tomorrow!

Previous page: A cold morning in Greensburg
Next page: Tuning into the holiday spirit

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