The River Green

We’re preparing for a typical Thanksgiving this year. Mom, Jen, Brian, Jim and Lily are coming over, and there may be an appearance by one or more of our wayward friends. The turkey is provided by Lily and Co., who got it free after having spent so much money at Shop’N’Save. We put it in this morning.
Jen has to work very early on Black Friday, and will be staying until she has to leave. Hopefully everyone will be able to play games until then, or at least manage to stay lively and conversational.
The Rockettes just opened the Macy’s parade. What a great tradition that has become. I can’t help worrying that in a few short years the sight of beautiful legs will suddenly make me hungry for turkey.
Just before the guests arrive: Our plans for Black Friday haven’t changed, except we’ll probably get to where we’re going a little later than everyone else. Some places are opening at midnight. They’re messing with a fine holiday and the evil must be stopped.
Right after we ate: Dinner was great, but I think I forgot to take pictures. Oh well… they all look the same anyway! Games start as soon as the dishes are done. I’ll just close my eyes for a quick second…
Everyone’s about to go home: Jen and I are going to Best Buy for $4 flash drives and a new peripheral hard drive. Hopefully they still have some, since Best Buy was open at 10:00pm *on Thanksgiving*!!! WTF?!
The next day: Well, all the sales items that I wanted at Best Buy were gone, but I managed to snag a relatively cheap hard disk with a 500GB capacity. Marieke and I are going to Ross Park Mall for black Friday since we haven’t been there in a while. We’re not really looking for anything in particular, but if we find it, we’ll get it!
Back home on Black Friday: There was a line at least 150 cars long to get out of Ross Park Mall. They organized certain sections of the massive parking lot into guaranteed parking for $10. Not a bad idea, but we parked about 4 spaces away from all that and walked. It’s ok… we’re fine. Teavana is a really awesome shop, but all the associates work on commission, so it was hard to look at something without having your leg humped. One associate with below average looks decided that she wanted to ‘play house’ with me and began setting up a whole tea set with indications of where she would sit and where I would sit. Marieke was standing right next to me. Of course I was oblivious to the whole thing and just thought the associate was being nice. I was told that we’re not going back into that store.

Labels: black friday , holidays , Thanksgiving

Despite my good friend and her family bailing on us at the very last minute, Marieke and I went ahead with plans to host a Memorial Day cookout. It was the first time we would see our friend from Canada, Jenny Jesty, since she came back to Pittsburgh. We also extended an invitation to Suzy, who made Marieke’s coin bracelet and Kara’s Irish coin necklace. Suzy has a friend, Anita, who is in the same field as Marieke and brought her along as well. My mother rounded out the guest list and I was noticeably the only guy present.

Our menu was, as usual, quite robust. Even though our good friend was supposed to bring the meats that we were then going to grill, forcing Marieke into the den of the grocery store the morning of the shindig- which we scheduled for Sunday before Memorial Day, it all turned out very nice. Perhaps even better than originally planned, since we treated ourselves and our guests to the finest in grillable meats. Our beverages included a gallon jug of iced tea and a case of Yeungling Bock Beer. Also, anything our guests bring to drink for themselves is also often shared. Suzy and Anita brought some Straub beer and Jenny brought ice.

Just before we came inside for dinner, there was a National Geographic moment brought to us by the lovely orange cat that gave me my wounds and his grey long-haired mistress. In the middle of the street. No doubt, breeding more kittens to become territorial over.

The dinner-time conversation was sporadic, which has become endemic of the exquisite fare our guests have become accustomed to at our house. So, most of the conversation took place afterward, on the porch, as we took part in Marieke’s Southern-Style Banana Pudding.

It was such a beautiful evening to spend outside and in the company of new and old friends and family. I didn’t want it to end. But soon enough, everyone departed for their own homes and we were left with not much cleanup at all, since we opted for disposable dishes and flatware.

We were expecting a much larger crowd, so we had so many leftovers and it was hard to fit it all back into our fridge. Luckily, we were smart and only made half as much of all the salads that we planned, even before we found out that our friends were bailing on us. On the menu were deviled eggs, macaroni salad, coleslaw, chips, baked beans, Mom’s tomato-onion-lemon salad, watermelon and an assortment of condiments. It was all very delicious.

The day before, we were invited to our across the street neighbor’s house for a cookout and live music. It’s always fun and the previous occupants of the house- whom we hadn’t seen in a while- were there as well, along with our new neighbor and a couple other people we knew from their large New Year’s bash.

Labels: friends , holidays

For this year’s milestone birthday, I decided to have a three day extravaganza, topped off with a gift to myself. The gift was finally, at long last, my own website. richwertzonline.com is up and running. The time it took settling on a theme was a bit longer than anticipated, but in the end, it is a bamboo inspired design with some pretty impressive and cutting edge css style renderings. Of course, I had to make a statement along the lines that it looked and functioned better with either a Chrome or Firefox browser. I imagine some people might say that I am incapable of designing anything that is viewable in Internet Explorer. I say to them that IE hasn’t been able to match my level of creativity as yet. I’ve always been one to push the boundaries of web design. I remember spending so much time creating images for a table layout that mimicked public transportation with the content located where the adverts would be. It was a while before I could show it to anyone without Netscape or Mozilla. Just for kicks, I re-created the same concept using purely css constructs and it took about a tenth the amount of time.

So that’s how I spent the first half of my birthday week. Tweaking my new website and doing school work. The other half consisted of my birthday dinner (on the day of my birthday) at Hokkaido; Kara joined us and she gave me an iTunes gift card in a really awesome card. I managed to stuff an entire plate of crab legs into my gob, but half of the shells ended up on the floor when I tried to open a particularly difficult shell and slipped. The wait staff literally standing next to our table didn’t find my antics amusing at all. Afterward, we all went to Dave & Buster’s for some game time. Kara won me 1,000 tickets at the bass fishing thing- which was really awesome. I couldn’t get enough of the coin games. Jovanna met us there and had some fun, too. Some of the nearly 3,000 tickets we have on the card covered the purchase of a new mug.

Thursday was stamppot day. Kara, Jen and my mom were invited, but mom had to cancel because of her back. Everything was delicious- even the turkey sausage turned out better than I thought.

A few days after my birthday, we went to mom’s so that she could give both Marieke and I our birthday presents. She gave me a really neato existentialist book about chaos theory and the philosophy of physics. It’s kind of hard to read, only because certain sections need some devoted time to finish and I can only read it in smaller bits until class is over.

Labels: family , friends , holidays

…was Christmas Day. I got everything I wanted without realizing it.

For the six weeks, we have been cleaning, moving, fixing, repairing, putting away, stacking, preparing, working, studying and hoping that everything would work out in the end. My goal was to finish what was the hardest term I have had to date in school. My last day was the Tuesday before Christmas. Midterms were right around Thanksgiving. We had a good Black Friday this year- we slept in a bit and spent the entire day watching college football. There were about six games in total. Christmas was a planned day of laziness.

The most outstanding reason for having our dinner on Christmas Eve was due to BBC America’s decision to broadcast- for the first time ever- the Doctor Who Christmas Special on Christmas. It was due to come on at 9pm sharp. Our dinners rarely end before 2am, so watching the special would have otherwise have been impossible. When we discovered that the 14 hours preceding the special would be filled with a Doctor Who marathon, we were pretty dead set on parking ourselves on the sofa and doing very little.

Doctor Who at the Proms was on for two hours, beginning at around 1pm. During that time, both Marieke and I drifted in and out of a state of sleep so restful and taken in such a comfortable environment, it was difficult to tell at times that it was all happening on the sofa. We had reserved a few movies from RedBox to watch on that day, mirroring our activity one year previous. When it was decided that we would savor our nest for the entire day, we both changed into even more comfortable clothes. Marieke found a particularly comfortable pair of ‘in-active’ bottoms (as opposed to the active bottoms I use during workout time)- plaid, soft, made of t-shirt material and oh-so perfect for lounging. I spent most of the rest of the day in these pants.

After the amazing and exceedingly good Doctor Who Christmas Special episode, we capped the evening off with about half the episodes from the sixth season of Weeds. This also mirrored the activities of last year. Having the laptop made watching the episodes quite simple and it was far easier to set up and watch.

It was truly a day of relaxation. Well deserved relaxation. We all need a day off- I was lucky to get two. For second Christmas (12/26)- a happily adopted Dutch tradition- we began the day by having brunch with a friend, whose New Year will begin with a deployment to Iraq. We did some shopping, taking just enough time outside our nest to avoid cabin fever. We did watch our movies and the rest of the sixth season of Weeds.

In a word, the last two days have been simply bliss. I do not want to let them go.

Labels: holidays

The day is upon us. Time for turkey, mashed potatoes, friends, family, beer and Marieke’s sweet potato oranges. Unlike last year, we are hosting this time around and are welcoming eight people to our ginormous table.

Part of the reason we opted out of hosting last year was because we didn’t have the energy to clean. Having to spend most of our physical and emotional strength dealing with our friend’s accident meant that we just could not hack hosting. The decision did not go over well with our normal crew- one person in particular responded to our decision with static. I did expect a little more understanding, but I knew it was just expecting too much.

Our day began with some coffee and planning. My first task was to make room in the former Gecko room, for all the stuff that doesn’t belong where we plan to eat dinner and socialize. Marieke’s first task was cleaning the bathroom. An hour later, we seriously considered cancelling. Aunt Flo paid us a three-day-early visit, so that wrenched up the whole works.

It is a mystery to me, how, in under twelve hours, the house looks like a palace- granted a small palace. Maybe a gnome palace, but a palace nonetheless. Speaking of Kabouters (Dutch for gnomes), the vacuum we had to borrow from mom was made for use in only the residents of gnomes. This is the only possible conclusion to draw, given the ridiculous angle one must stand in order to operate it. My mother is what I would call average in height for a woman in her demographic. Marieke and I are what I would call above average in height. I can see over everyone’s head on the bus and in crowds, I tend to be the first to know when it starts to rain. So maybe it’s a matter of perspective.

In digression, I’ll say this: the turkey looks quite defrosted, having spent the last five days sitting in the fridge. Our prep work for tomorrow- food wise- seems like it will be smooth sailing, since we have a CuisinArt hand-me-down that slices carrots faster than the speed of lightning and chops onions like nobody’s business. I’m sad to see our ‘manual’ chopper go, but I won’t miss nursing the wounds suffered to my knuckles from the mandolin slicer that it doubled as. Also gone will be the nearly ninety minutes of slicing four pounds of carrots. It’s a tradeoff, but those things were invented for a reason. Now I can sleep in.

My cousin, David, shared a quote from Melody Beattie that I thought appropriate:

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beattie

Have a good Thanksgiving.

Labels: family , friends , holidays , house , Thanksgiving

In about 80 hours or so, our house will be filled with guests for Thanksgiving. We are expecting 8 people and a 9th for dessert. Among the rituals that are normally fulfilled during these hours is the annual clean for company exercise. While our house is far from a pigsty, it has its little corners of boxes filled with items that have yet to find a home, the ubiquitous hair ball and of course we don't get to use the dining room table on any kind of regular basis, so that is covered in various miscellanea that probably should have a permanent home. The problem isn't one of space, though this house is severely lacking in closets, which adds to the frustration of trying to clean. When it becomes necessary to stuff Aldi bags into the corner by the dog crate because there is no other place for them to live, we yearn for just one simple closet.

The problem is Black Friday and the never-ending pursuit of stuff acquisition. If I had to move out of this house tomorrow and could only take that which I have used for the past year, I could probably make one trip on a bicycle with a sturdy satchel on the rear. But that's only if I had to. Everything else has a bit of memorial significance to it which prompts me to not deposit it at the nearest Goodwill for someone else to have and hold, look at and admire. Each of these things reminds me of one event in my life or another. Photographs would most certainly make the trip with me in the bicycle. Aside from my beloved computer and a coffee mug or two and my clothes, I don't really use anything else in this house. Dishes don't count because you pretty much need them to eat off of and I could purchase a new set for very cheap at the new apartment that I would be bicycling to.

Don't get us wrong. We have made so many trip to Goodwill this year and we went on a Craig's List selling spree in the early summer. We certainly are not against ridding ourselves of the unused, non-living occupants of our house. I guess the larger question becomes why we hold so many inanimate objects close to us as though they were a living person? And then why would we choose to let them gather dust in some random corner instead of revisiting them, or stuff them into a closet?

This is not a rhetorical question it is a practical one. I remember a movie where one of the main characters was asked to house sit for her boss. When she and her boyfriend arrived to feed the cat, there was nothing but a table for the cat food and a litter box. The rest of the apartment was empty. When prompted by an inquisitive look from the boyfriend, the woman said 'He's a minimalist.'

Why can't we all be comfortable with this. I mean, of course we would need a sofa and a coffee table and a few other essential items to accommodate comfort, but what is so horrid about living with only essential things? Is it our materialist nature? Is it our fractured, lonely social order? Could we attribute this to a certain fear that our lives are completely empty without such things to bring us comfort?

I don't have an answer, nor do I yet have either an opinion or a theory.

In any case, there are far worse things I suppose we should be concentrating our analytical skills on such as where we are going to put the shit on the table, where is that attachment to the vacuum that magically removes pet hair from any surface, where is our own Billy Mays (did you know he is from Pittsburgh?) and his amazing RoboClean, which is capable of cleaning your entire house with the simple push of one button, so easy a child can operate it (cut to a child pushing a button on a devise and watching in amazement and wonderment as if it were a home work doing machine)... and the like...

Oh there is so much stuff to do. At least we found all the requested diet drinks for our guests after no less than six, yes six, stores. Now if we can only locate a single bag of Gardetto's pumpernickel rye chips to complete the recipe for chex mix, we're all set.

Labels: black friday , holidays , house , Thanksgiving