Turkey Coma, Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Wow, I thought maybe I had been asleep for years when I read the paper on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I worked hard to figure out what Black Friday meant. Finally a friend explained it was the day retail establishments hoped to move into the black and out of the red. How hard it must be to not be Walmart. How hard it must be to try and make all your profit in one day. How stupid to call it Black Friday. Possibly "In the black Friday" would make more sense at least to those of us who remember using black and red in ledger books to denote positive and negative numbers.

So, having emerged from the Turkey and Cooking Coma of Thanksgiving and having had a new media phrase explained this usually hip 40 year old, I was hit with Cyber Monday. Who Knew?

The Monday following Thanksgiving when everyone goes back to work with access to high speed connection to the internet is now known as Cyber Monday. We window shop all weekend planning out how and what we will order from the privacy of our own desks. No big deal since most offices will be slooooow on Monday and most bosses will be stuck somewhere much more exotic.

Maybe we could create virtual Christmas & Hanukkah in the future where we send lovely graphics of what we wanted to buy all our friends and family. Of course add the shopping links and we could then just shop for ourselves and get exactly what we originally wanted. The upside would be no ACTUAL standing in line to return something that turns out to have been purchased 3 years ago and has been on the regift train since.

Time to eat more turkey and hopefully wake up by Jan. 2 to watch the New Year's Day Rose parade, or better yet, wait until the 4th to watch the Rose Bowl game.

I am very confused this year.

Oh, and by the way, I don't want to say Happy Holidays. Be offended, go ahead, I dare you.

Happy Hannumas, Merry Christmakuh, Ramadan is over and Kwanza is MIA.

Remember when

Remember when you were in college and Thursday was a party night because the next day was Friday? I'm sort of wishing for that kind of logic today. To get so excited about a Friday, ahhhh.
Now I look to the weekend to tend to all the household duties needing to be completed before Thanksgiving.

Last year I decided to take over my family's Thanksgiving holiday. I bought a brand new very large and very beautiful dining room table. Plus linens to go with it. This year I barely remembered to order the fresh organic turkey from gelson's. And now I must make up for the lost weeks of preparation. Luckily I got my act together just a tad and so the carpets and sofas are clean and beautiful. The electrician will descend on Tuesday, just in time to fix the long broken kitchen lights. That's right I have no light in my kitchen except for a bed table lamp plugged in on the counter. Of course, I will use the excuse of my family coming to finally fix the toilet flusher thing for the 5th time. A friend has promised to sit and talk me through my frustration. I swear, this time I'm going to buy two of the replacement parts so when I brake the first replacement I will have a spare, plus if I buy two, this time I will only need the first.

Of course, I am leaving out the cleaning off of counter tops and desks and tables strewn with magazines, newspapers and the neverending supply of catalogs that appear each and every day this time of years. And when all that is done I get to cook. Don't get me wrong, I like to cook. But due to the fact I live with a roommate and a dog and my schedule is insane, I don't cook much.

That is the part I want to focus on cooking for my family. I am lucky/blessed by my family. We actually like each other. So, whether or not every drawer gets cleaned out or even if they have to reach into the toilet to make it flush, we will have a lovely dinner together as we do many many times during the rest of the year.

Watching Alias at 3:00 a.m.

Many of us think TiVo is one of the great inventions. Especially for people like me who go to school at night. I get home at 9:30 p.m. exhausted, but on a coffee high that is required to sit through class for 5 hours. Then I go to the TiVo list and by Tuesday nights there is tons of stuff from the previous week which I have had no time to watch. And as the insomnia sets in I find myself in a TiVo haze. Skipping through commercials each show just whizzes by and then I see the clock. It's 3:30 a.m. I must get up at 6:30 a.m. for the carpet cleaners.

And now it is 10:30 a.m. and I am wired on adrenalin and the gorgeous day God provided here in Los Angeles. Maybe it is the lack of sleep that acts as a mood enhancer or maybe it is my beloved Santa Ana winds or maybe it is the love of waking up in the Promised Land (as a good friend calls the Valley). Either way, there is a smile planted on my face. A smile of the natural kind. I am invigorated. Who knew Alias at 3:00 a.m. could be just what I needed.

New Outlook or Same Old Me

I volunteer for a Youth and Government program. It is really wonderful to watch high school students learn about the government through their own model legislature and court program.

But it really sucks some times to be the one disciplining them. Especially the girls. It is as if they wake up with scowls on their faces. I could say the sky is blue and get nothing but attitude in my face. I am lucky to have seen them laughing, joking, speaking, writing and being honest to goodness human beings and not the evil spawn that takes over their bodies on occasion.

And to make matters worse, sometimes their evil permeates me and I find myself behaving as an idiot adult, quickly sinking to the "parent" level. The one that says, "you will do it because I said so", "I know best for you," and of course "Just Do It Now."

UGH. I know better, but sometimes they really push my buttons. Unlike them, I apologize and try to do better. I guess that is what separates us and all I am looking for is for them to say, "I'm sorry I was a bitch", I'm sorry I question everything you say," "I'm sorry I interrupted you again." If only that could happen, the days spent would be so much more peaceful.

Reistance, Protest and Rush Hour

Here I am, this liberal frustrated by the people's right to stand up and march and speak their minds. But, I work in Westwood, CA right next to the Federal Bldg. So, in addition to evacuations due to bomb scares my coworkers and I must deal with the protesting that occurs fairly regularly. However, yesterday was different. There was to be rallies starting at noon all along Wilshire Blvd from downtown to the ocean and at 5:00 they would all meet at the Federal Building and proceed to March through Westwood. Sounds okay, right? Unless you work on Wilshire and you have to close your office early in order to have any chance of getting out of the building and making it home before midnight.

This may seem over dramatic, but I really have been stuck in the building for hours. I can't help it, traffic and commuter time trumps the right to protest. Well, not really, but . . . I live in the Valley. I grew up on the Westside, right in Mar Vista, but when I was grown I wanted a house and since I'm not one of the top 2% in the country I couldn't afford the Westside. In fact if I hadn't purchased my house in the valley (van nuys) 4 years ago I wouldn't be able to afford it either.

I digress. Commuting. It is terrible. 3 minor fender benders that have moved to the shoulder can add 30 minutes to an already 60 minute drive to an 11 mile commute. So, I'm not really sorry to condemn a city that allows permits for rallies and marches during rush hour. It just doesn't make much sense to me. I heard Gov Schwarzenneger was riding the bus yesterday in LA to experience the traffic first hand. Thank goodness he didn't come to Westwood too. I am sure it would have meant an even greater need to take what work I could do from home and get on the 405 even earlier.

I know I am rambling and ranting. It can't be helped today. It is hard for this liberal who wishes we were not at war but at the end of the day I just want to get home!!!!!!