Thanksgiving

This morning I went down to the fitness center in the Sheraton and found that it was small and cramped and empty. Okay, situation normal. I turn on the TV and get on the treadmill.

About 2 minutes later the door opens and a guy walks in. "Mind if I change the channel?" he asked. I shrugged. Having a TV on is the only benefit of jogging on a treadmill -- it doesn't actually matter what's ON the TV. All programs are equally mind-numbing.

He got on the stair-stepper and started climbing. I jogged.

The door opened; another guy came in. Wanted to know when I would be done with the treadmill. When I've gotten to 30 minutes, I said.

He started lifting weights, the other guy climbed stairs, I jogged.

The door opened: an older woman came in. Started using some of the weight equipment and looking at me suspiciously. "When will you be done?" she said.

"In a couple of minutes." [pant] [pant] "But that guy wants it first."

Everybody went back to working out.

The door opened again. At this point I think, What is this, a college fraternity prank? Let's see how many people we can cram into the hotel fitness center? This never happens.

A couple came in. The stair-stepper guy got off the stairs; one of the couple immediately jumped on. None of the other 300 people already in there wanted to use it, I guess. They were all waiting for the treadmill.

I got to 30 minutes and cooled down for 2 minutes. I expected a riot within seconds of my getting off the treadmill.

Lil, Dad, Mark, and Matthew showed up at Darin's parents' house shortly after Darin and I showed up at their house. Mark's first words: "Where's the football game?"

The house filled with 3 to 4 million people during the day (and I can never remember their relationships to one another, but suffice to say that everyone is filled with brotherly love and there is no gunfighting).

I eventually crawled off to the brown bedroom to read the newest installment in Colleen McCullough's Rome series, Caesar. As always, it is tough going in the beginning -- who are these people, and what did they do to one another in the last book? -- but she really brings that time alive. I'm curious about her assertion that not only was Caesar not bisexual, but he actively hated homosexuals and the gossip about him was just that -- gossip to ruin his reputation. But what the hey: I hang out on alt.showbiz.gossip, what can I say.

At dinner time there was more food than you could shake a stick at. My favorite: Mitch's garlicky mashed potatoes. There is just never enough of those potatoes. I ate what I wanted and that wasn't much, even though I hadn't been snacking all day, amazingly enough (given the quantity of food that had started floating around first thing).

After dinner, we did the gift exchange. This year, we finally wised up and decided it was crazy to buy gifts for 20 people, because what you always ended up doing was buying 20 of the same gift and handing those out. For example, last year I handed out 10 USC Cinema caps and 10 USC Cinema t-shirts. We did "Secret Santa" style gift-giving...or, as Scott put it, "Secret Non-denominational Gift-Giver" gift-giving. Everyone made a wish list that Carole distributed electronically and we bought gifts for our secret recipient.

A week before we flew to Chicago, however, Darin and I realized that we were mostly sure who our recipients were, but not absolutely sure. We contemplated setting up a clearing-house with Ceej, in which all the members of the family would send Ceej their recipient and Ceej could determine whether or not everyone was remembering correctly.

And more importantly, if anyone else thought they were giving gifts to Jody, which is who Darin thought he had.

It turned out not to be necessary because

1. Darin did, in fact, have Jody and
2. Ceej, although willing to participate, had no idea what she was probably in for.

After the gifts we watched Back to the Future on TNT and then Men in Black, which Steve got on laserdisc. The main difference between these two, whatever you may think of them otherwise, is that Back to the Future has a remarkably tight script, whereas Men in Black is all over the map. Yes folks, scripts really do contribute to the enjoyment of a pic.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

Some turkey, but not an ungodly amount. I wanted an ungodly amount of those garlic mashed potatoes, but the gods were not kind. Some gravy.

A small, but extremely tasty, slice of lemon tart. Yum.

No pie. If all of the desserts in the world suddenly turned into cherry pie and cheesecake, I would be Twiggy.