A nice hot Soy Chai Latte on a cold ass day. The Chai makes me happy.

Oh, wait... Am I still allowed to post on here? If I do, does it mean I'm back to regular-ish writing or something? Shit. I guess it does. Read on, motherfuckers! Nice to have you (or me, maybe) back!

"What if somebody has more than one hoe?" Lindsay, her sister Lisa and I all burst into laughter, quickly followed by her mom, who realized what she'd just asked... We were playing Boggle and debating how to spell the plural of "hoe", as in "bitches and hoes". Is it hoes? ho's? hos? We never really got to the bottom of that argument, but let me tell you what: Boggle was good, clean, Thanksgiving day fun. Except that, for some reason, I kept throwing in words like "kilo" and shit like that. Hee. I'm a deviant, I tell you! A deviant!

Thanksgiving was at Lindsay's family this year, so we got to hitch our asses up and drive all the way down to Davenport, Iowa on Wednesday morning and all the way back Friday morning. That's about 11 hours worth of driving, kids. Does the fun ever start?

Well, yeah. Duh. Of course there was fun. You read about Thanksgiving day Boggle. Also this: on the way there, we stopped in Iowa City. Happy Joe's Taco Pizza was telling us we should order a vegetarian version of itself and eat it for lunch. We were all "oh yeah?" and the pizza was all "Yeah." So we didn't fight with the pizza any further. We just ate it. Yum.

One of the things that sucks about the Twin Cities? No Happy Joe's Pizza. Another thing that sucks? Star Trek style transporters aren't invented yet. Beam here, beam there, beam back. That would make holidays and my life so much easier. Not that transporters are really so much "prevalent" anywhere else, though. But could you imagine? Beam to anywhere you want for vacation, for dinner, for sporting events or concerts. Oh, man. That would change the world so much. You can just beam to work at the last minute. More sleep for me!

At any rate, we were in Iowa City... You know what else is there? Shhh. I'll tell you, but you can't tell anyone else about it, okay? Cause I know if you do, it will start to suck. Just between you and me? Okay, here goes: It's Lins' and my absolute favorite antique shop in the entire world: Granny's. It's a little hole in the wall sort of store that always has really cool kitschy stuff and all very very reasonably priced.

I unearthed (pun!) a globe lamp -- I've wanted one for so long and it's so cool -- and for only $17. Hee. I mean, one, it's a globe. Okay, that's kind of nerdish. Two, it lights up. No longer nerdy. In fact, it just might be the coolest thing I own now. The globe lamp lives in perfect harmony in the Den of the Future. Lins scored a big ol' monotone green still life painting with a seriously kickass frame for her craft room for only $5! Are you crazy, Granny? The frame itself has to be worth at least $50. Whew.

Wednesday night, we hooked up with our good buds Whitney & Jeremy (W&J) and chit chatted it up at Front Street Brewery in Davenport. I really wish W&J lived closer somehow or we got to see them more, because they're really fun to hang out with. There's also a lot of cross talking when we all hang out. There will almost always be 2 separate conversations going on at the same time and every 5 minutes or so, they will intersect and then you may keep talking with the same person, or you may start talking with the other. It's crazy and fun, but Lins has no idea what all I talked about and I have no idea what all she talked about. We're both half clueless. Much. Unlike. Normal. Hee.

Thurdsay (or, as some like to call it: Thanksgiving) went really well again this year. Lins' family is always a blast to hang out with, so I guess I've got that going for me. Lins and I uncovered Electronic Battleship at her parent's house and went toe to toe for one game. Her toe was better than my toe, and she beat me by what would have been 5 more turns for me. Eek. That, people, is close.

On the way back to the cities on Friday, we stopped in Cedar Rapids to see my Aunt's family. Thanks to my snazzy XMas list page, Aunt Jean slid me her copy of Zoolander. "Merry Christmas [you little bastard*]." Hee. Kick ass. My, what an unfortunate turn of events for you, cousin Kate, too bad noone else in your family but you liked the movie! Bwah hah ha! *Oh, yeah. Jean didn't call me "you little bastard". It was clearly implied in her tone of voice, though. Hee. No it wasn't. I just thought it sounded funnier if I had her call me a little bastard.

Oh yeah. Krispy Kreme Count for the Thanksgiving trip: I had 2 OG (original glazed) and 1 pumpkin glazed. Yum.

Jean also tried to force feed me some mutant strain of French Silk Pie (with Graham Crapper Crust!), but I had just eaten a Krispy Kreme OG and couldn't take much more from the sweets spectrum. I did manage to eat a few bites, though. Hee. Graham Crapper crust makes the dish, people.

So we got home Friday and didn't leave the house much all weekend. Just what I needed. Plus Lindsay's business is busy as all getout right now, so just what she needed, too.

All in all, I'm glad I had 3 extra days away from work last week, but I still feel like I could use another week or 2 weeks (or more) off. From talking with others, I'm getting the feeling that that sort of thing is going around.

Well, anyway, it feels good to write again, and I hope I can keep it up on at least a weekly basis. Hopefully more, but you never know with me. Thanks for caring and reading and all that. You know I love you all,
Eric