Thanksgiving Weekend

Today is my first day back at work since thanksgiving. After a busy morning, I left and headed to the airport for my flight to California. More on that later. For now, I’ll give an update on what’s been going on over the last week since no less than five people have pointed out to me this week that I haven’t posted lately, and I don’t really remember beyond last Wednesday. This’ll be a long one =)

Thanksgiving at home was uneventful. It was the first time in years that we’d done thanksgiving at my parent’s home with the family. The last few years we’d been apart, on a cruise ship, or at other people’s homes. The week began with Wednesday. I went into work to discover that there was nearly no one there! So few in fact, that the company bought pizza for the lone souls who decided to show up. However, with the projects I’d been working on, I had a lot to do, and managed to be the last one in the building before the holiday. I used Thursday to relax and get a bunch of stuff done around the house. I made a big fruit salad, and in the afternoon headed over to my parents’ house. We celebrated with a family friend and my friend Matt. The food was delicious. I must say that my mom’s first attempt at parve (non-dairy) cornbread was delicious. It might have been because she snuck in some extra sugar when my dad wasn’t watching ;-)

Friday was a day for catching up with everyone. Smitha had organized for all of us old GT Orchestra people to get together for lunch, so six of us met at flying biscuit and had a yummy fill for a couple hours (as if we hadn’t eaten enough the night before). We then walked over to Piedmont park, and played Frisbee for a while, and Moshe took some photos while we played. My college friend Leah was also in town, and we met up in the afternoon to walk around the GT campus and go to the varsity, and walk around Atlantic Station. It had been a while since she’d been in town. We proceeded to the Atlanta Brewing Company, where it was pretty busy with people. We met up with Scott, Courtney, Matt, and a few others for the tasting. From there, Leah had other dinner plans, so she headed out and the rest of us went over to Matt’s for dinner. He had wanted to cook a thanksgiving dinner Thursday, but since most people were going to their own families houses, he opted to host Friday Shabbat instead. I brought some Challah, but other than that, Matt cooked everything. He made a traditional thanksgiving meal – turkey, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. An impressive showing of his cooking prowess.

Saturday was dedicated to one thing, and one thing only. FOOTBALL. My favorite game of the year is the GT/ UGA rivalry game that always takes place the Saturday after thanksgiving. It is the only time of year we (the GT fans) really bother talking smack to the opponent, and we do it whether we think we’ll win or not. Although many feared the blowout that could’ve been the result of this game, UGA was only favored by 3.5 points, so we continued our smack talk. I decided a few days before the game to host a tailgate, and at 10:00 AM we found a nice spot at Yellow Jacket park (where the old Hightower building was) and set up our tailgate. Everyone was responsible for bringing something, and once everyone arrived, we were set. We had delicious food, and a great turnout! It was a little cold, but everyone was dressed for it, and so we managed fine outdoors. DZ headed up the grilling while Matt E. actually made some of the hamburgers from scratch! Betsy was in town and stopped by for a while, and with her came her famous mankiller cupcakes. I didn’t actually get to eat one, but they sure looked good! After four quarters of cheering as much as possible for my team, we came out with a loss. Our seventh loss in a row to UGA. It’s interesting still that we can have a winning season but if we don’t beat Georgia, the season goes as a disappointment. We’ll still be going to a bowl game, although again it is a bowl that no one really cares about.

Sunday I went down to Locust Grove (south of Atlanta) and spent the AM with Leah before she left town back to WA. We don’t get to see each other that often, so I was trying to take advantage of any opportunity to meet up. After visiting with her and her family, I took a detour to the Tanger outlets and did a little shopping before it got too busy for the day. In the afternoon, I came home to do some cooking. I had dinner guests coming over. A woman I work with, Suzanne, lost her husband a couple months ago, so I wanted to have her over for dinner. Turns out she knows a friend of our family – Manuela - that lives in the complex next to me. So I made a date of it, and invited Suzanne, Manuela, and my mom over for dinner. On the menu was spicy cream of potato soup with homemade wheat bread for starters. For the main course we had my “famous” salmon with Spanikopita, and tomato spaghetti – Cuban style. Then was papaya and melon, followed by chocolate molten lava cake with ice cream. I made brownies too, since I was worried the lava cakes weren’t going to come out, but they came out perfectly, so the brownies were untouched. All this went perfectly with some white wine that Suzanne brought from her visit this week to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. When you put a Belgian, Parisian, and Cuban and me at the dinner table, the conversations flows beautifully. I think everyone had a lovely time until I ran everyone out of the house after 3 hours since I had dance practice. Dance practice was hilarious. We had a smaller group that usual (about 10 showed for practice), and we were learning some jams for future use at different upcoming performances. We did one called “the worm” that was hilarious. I won’t even begin to describe it, but during the practice, I was kicked in the head and slammed my butt on the floor a bunch of times, and hit my knees on the floor a lot too. Needless to say, I am a bit bruised up today. I can’t complain though, I laughed so hard during practice, my abs were hurting.

So like I said, I am writing this entry on my way to CA. I am heading to CA for the week to work on my ice cream project in Bakersfield (about 2 hours from LA). We were slated to come back at the end of the week, but the office is closed for the big move on Friday anyway, so I opted to stay in CA for a couple extra days, and am taking back the Saturday red eye flight to arrive in Atlanta early Sunday morning. While in CA, I have plans to meet up with four different friends, so hopefully I can juggle it right to get to see everyone. For now though, I think I’ve written enough for one entry to keep everyone appeased for a few more days. Happy Post Thanksgiving everyone!

I are an Engineer.

I was sitting at my parent’s house about 7 years ago, and we were all sitting around the table having dinner. My dad had prepared ravioli for dinner, and I remember the following happening: The ravioli were triangle shaped, and I was cutting them into three parts before eating them. By doing this, I’d created three quadritateral pieces, none of which were square, but all of which were identical to the next. My dad was watching me do this, one by one as I was eating them. He finally commented on it and although I was consciously doing the cutting, I wasn’t really focused on the fact of how I was doing it. I’ve realized over the years that I do weird things like that all the time.

On long road trips, I am constantly calculating based on how many miles I have left and how fast I am going, exactly what time I will arrive at the destination, or where I will be by a certain time. I do the same thing to a smaller scale when I go for a run. I come up with shortcuts on my drives until I have figured out the best timing based on traffic patterns, traffic lights, and what days the garbage trucks come. When I eat M&Ms, I pour out the bag, and collect one of each color and set them aside. I continue doing this until I can’t anymore, and then I collect one of each remaining color, etc. until I have a pile of 3 or fewer left. At that point, I eat them, and eat them backwards until my remaining candies are exactly one of each color. I keep my DVDs in alphabetical order. When I step into the garage, I open the garage door and always get the car turned on immediately as the garage door finishes opening. When I get in the car, I have a method so I close the door, put on my seatbelt, and start the car in one swift move. When I set up my kitchen, I put the cups over the dishwasher rather than the plates, so that I minimize trips to put away dishes (since plates can be stacked and all put away in one trip). I plan my recipes when I cook so that I can multitask the recipes and finish in the least time possible. I almost always fall asleep within 5 minutes of getting into bed.

I pin my socks together so I don’t have to match them later, and keep two laundry baskets so I don’t have to sort them later. My closet is arranged by clothing type and then by color. I couldn’t tell you how the internet works, but I can sure find anything I want pretty fast, as I am convinced I am a master of Google. I can’t solve a rubik’s cube, but I could probably solve a Sudoku puzzle faster than most.

I’m weird like that. Or maybe it’s that I am wired liked that. Is that the brain of an engineer? Or the brain of an overly compulsive person? Who knows? I just know that if I leave my house by 8:21, I get to work at 8:30.