“I never imagined we’d be hanging out in the parlor, and that Aaron was gonna take his shirt off”. And that was just the beginning of our Thanksgiving weekend.
Audrey and I escaped LA before noon on Wednesday and missed the true joy of Thanksgiving traffic, but it was still a couple of hours to get out of the city limits, and an occasional stop-and-go drive for three hundred miles thereafter. After a steak dinner at Harris Ranch (we were inspired by the seven million cows) we picked up a salt and pumpkin pie (they failed to mention that they were using salt instead of sugar this year), and got home just in time to join the folks for beers and a lovely evening of my brother with his shirt off.
Thanksgiving day saw everyone take a try at balancing on the exercise ball before stuffing ourselves with non-salted pie and turkey. Friday saw the traditional post-Thanksgiving Cocos breakfast and delicious Chow’s wontons, followed by a drive to Moss Beach to see Audrey’s friend and some imbibing on the cliffs next to the ocean as the sun set. Four cats, much sneezing, and fifty miles later and we were in Cupertino for the night, and we woke up a block away from my old office at HP. Audrey couldn’t visit Cupertino without posing with her iPad at the Apple Headquarters (I still like her), and then it was south to Gilroy to buy garlic products. Much driving later we arrived in the middle of nowhere to search out giant white pelicans in the Central Valley (who knew?) before driving off into the sunset and heading home.
Now comes four weeks of work, including two trips to Boise, before Christmas and two weeks of vacation. This time last year I was off on the Banjo Tour, so the winter of 2011 may not be quite so exciting, but hopefully at least one of December’s entries will be from somewhere on the road.
You know what? I thought it might be a good idea……..if I……took my shirt off
When I come home for Christmas, we’d probably get more chicks if we, y’know, took our shirts off.