Thanksgiving '09

Since we'd invited waay too many people to fit in our house, we decided to have our dinner at the restaurant. It was closed for the holiday and the manager, Joe, is new around here with no family or friends nearby. So he volunteered to cook our turkeys and I made the rest of the dinner as well as the desserts. Oh and the appetizers, of course!
I didn't even have time to photograph the bacon wrapped jalapeno thingies because they were served during "go time." That's the time that I run around making sure all my main dishes are sufficiently heated up and ready to go.



But there were more than 60 bacon wrapped jalapeno thingies. Really. 60. That's a lot of cholesterol.

Remember my goal? The decorative pies?
Well guess what....





Then the big exciting part of the dinner was the flaming creme brulees. I had no idea it would be such a hit:





At the end of the night, Shay, Steve, and I cleaned the entire restaurant by ourselves with Joe's help. We took just a few moments to sit and go "Aaaaah...."



And then we very happily made plans for next year. I think I'll volunteer some time in a soup kitchen and then we'll have a small little Thanksgiving dinner. Cleaning up after 20 people just isn't as fun as it used to be.

Congrats, Jimmie

Several years ago I met Jimmie Johnson, it was right after he gave up his off road racing career for stock car racing. His dad was a great friend of mine, and I (along with the brown menace) was invited to watch Jimmie race down in Phoenix. It was known as Busch racing back then. Don't know what it is now. So many title sponsor changes, can't keep track.
It was then that Jimmie secretly talked about a tentative deal to begin racing Winston Cup racing on a team that would be owned by Jeff Gordon.

He was a gracious host, and I was walking around in the pit area starry eyed because all the big guys of NASCAR were hanging out in our vicinity. I saw Richard Petty. I SAW RICHARD PETTY!!!! The King. He was in the motorhome across from us, watching a t.v. that popped out the side of his luxury bus. I saw Richard Petty.

Back then, I did not have a nice camera. In fact, I had a crap camera. So the picture of me with Jimmie Johnson is not the greatest. I scanned it. Sorry. Not the greatest.



That's me, on the right. I'm pretending to touch Jimmie's butt. He was busy talking to Johnny Benson (JOHNNY BENSON!!!) and two guys who are known in the off road business as Nelson and Nelson Racing.

Yesterday Jimmie Johnson won his fourth consecutive NASCAR championship. Congrats, Jimmie!

Used To

I used to have a little baby that looked like this:




He had hobbies like exploring little areas of interest, like this:



Now he looks like this:



And his hobbies include this:



And this:



I used to wear my hair in a snappy side-part with a smart white barret. Like so...



That was 1985. That same year, I saw the space shuttle Columbia in person. It was on its way back to Florida after landing in California. After a refueling stop in nasty old Omaha, it took off. It wasn't very close, but I remember seeing the scorch marks on the white tiles.



I moved to Arizona after 9th grade, graduated in the top 20 of my class. It must've been my glasses:



I went to nursing school. That was a bit like several years of torture. Hated it. Really hated it. Couldn't believe that the one profession I'd dreamed of joining for so long was as awful as it was. Here I am in the last semester of nursing school:



My classmate with me in the picture left after that semester as well, to move to Nebraska. Nursing jobs paid waaay better there.

I used to camp in some nearby mountains with friends every July. We'd hike all day, exploring and looking for wildlife. We would run into bears, deer, elk, and all sorts of forest dwellers. One hike we discovered this canyon. Had no idea it was there!



I'm standing on a very precarious ledge while Shay's dad takes a photo.
I sure do miss my brown hair.