HATHY VANKSGIPPING

Hello readers dear and far!

It's 12:41 on Saturday, the day after the day after Thanksgiving, which is sort of a confusing way to say it. It reflects well the state of my mind now, though: a little scattered, a little tired, still riding the high of Thanksgiving and the visits of Benjamin, Mika, and Emil; Joedy's brother and sister-in-law Jesse and Melissa and their kids Noah, Venenzia, Victoria (still with us), and Robert (still with us); my stepdad Robert (still with us); our friend Blaine (still with us), Joedy's parents (still in town, visiting other family today); and, for Thanksgiving itself, the adorable trio of cousins/friends Kat, Nate, and Noah.

It's been so much fun having everyone around: the other night, getting ready for bed, I heard Emil crying and Robert moving around in the office, where he's been sleeping, and it made me so happy. Being surrounded by people I love, having all this fun stuff happening all the time, hearing voices in the kitchen when I wake up, making fires outside, going dancing (twice in three nights!)...it all makes me SO happy.

On Thursday around three in the afternoon, while everyone was cooking or sitting out on the deck, talking and listening to the music on the old record player Robert brought us out from California (we'd left it in the care of Joedy's brother James last year), the much-anticipated cold front hit: it was AMAZING! All of a sudden I felt this gust of cold air blow in the through the kitchen window, and with each half hour, it seemed, it got colder and colder, until...dang! It was freaking cold! And a party was sent out to collect rocks to build a fire pit in the back yard (Nate ended up throwing one together by himself while they were gone...it was really awesome seeing the first flames and then, later, huddling by it, although by that time it really was too cold outside).

Like I said, I'm feeling a little scattered--I keep forgetting who's here and who's not, and I can't for the life of me remember what the date is--but that's just as much due to the Extreme Dancing and Somewhat Extreme Late-Nighting I've been doing lately, and perhaps a little due to the Unusual Amount Of Drinking I've been doing (three shots of tequila, back to back, last night!).

I don't really know what else to say right now so I'm going to post a few pictures and then, hopefully, go eat an insanely spicy taco so my brain will get back to normal.

As I yelled to strangers on the dance floor last night, Happy f'ing Thanksgiving!

Or: Happy Thanks-f'ing-giving!