In my many years of roaming this Earth, I’ve had more holiday meals than I can count.  This is partly because I have three sets of grandparents and we celebrate holidays separately with each of them.  But it’s mostly because our family really likes to eat.  With so many under my belt, I realize what I’m about to say is a pretty bold statement, but follow me here:

Last night’s Thanksgiving dinner with my friends was the best holiday meal in the history of time.

Everyone ’round the table agreed.  It. Was. Perfect.  Before seeing Adam Richman (which we’ll get to a little while later) I dropped off my b-e-a-UTIFUL pie at 529.  You can all imagine what this house usually looks like; it’s residents are four 20 & 21-year-old males.  One of their entire walls is a shrine of empty beer cans and a rainbow of empty Smirnoff bottles, with a Jack Daniels flag over the whole thing.  It is not unusual to step over bodies when over for a visit.

So imagine my complete shock when I walked in and the place was sparkling.  We’re talking counters so clean we could have eaten off ‘em, nary an empty alcohol container out of place, they’d put leaves in their dining room table and it was SET– complete with real silverware and folded napkins.  I almost cried.  The four boys who live there were wearing khakis, dress shirts, and their shirts were tucked in.  It was the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. 

When I returned for dinner, Bestie had the turkey all ready to go.  I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH A BEAUTIFUL TURKEY IN MY LIFE.  You so think I’m exaggerating, but I took a bazillion cell phones pics and will prove it to you.  The best part was it actually tasted fantastic.  This bird was ridonculous.  And he was just all, “It’s no big thing, I just Googled ‘turkey recipe.’”  In addition, the 529′ers had made mashed potatoes, gravy, deviled eggs, rolls, and corn on the cob (box potatoes, pre-made throw in the oven rolls, and Hy-Vee deviled eggs, but STILL!!).  We had a salad and cranberry sauce and held hands and said grace and everyone was nice to each other and there was Christmas music in the background and it was so, so awesome.  As someone around the table said, “I love you guys so much right now.”  SO. TOUCHING.  It’s okay, go ahead and grab a tissue.

The best part was probably the “cider wine” that was concocted– aka, a box of Franzia white wine mixed with apple juice and some cinnamon.  You know, real classy shit.  And then we had pie (which was a super big hit– I am so getting the bid for the room in 713 opening up next August), so by the time it was all said and done, we were ready for bed.  But we watched Training Day instead.  Everyone helped clean up and talked about how this was way better than any holiday dinner we have with our families because we could yell “Penis!” as loud as we wanted (I would like to point out I am not the one who made this discovery, but it did keep some people around the table entertained for way too long.  Yeah, yeah– so we’ve discovered there’s a difference between classy and mature.)  And then one of my friends went to go carve the rest of the turkey because “If I don’t do it now, no one will” and everyone in unison said something about that’s EXACTLY what their mothers say on Thanksgiving (only usually about dishes or putting away leftovers.)  They even packed everyone take-home plates  because “There’s just so much food!” 

Bee tee dubz, I’m home alone right now and have discovered the Christmas candy Mom has made  to go to Kansas City with us later this afternoon.  Helllooooo, peanut clusters.  And peanut butter balls.  And chocolate-dipped pretzels.  I also found the veggie tray, but eff that noise.

ANYWAY– so Adam Richman.  This engagement was NOT about Man vs. Food, to the chagrin of at least half the people in attendance, most especially the three bros behind me.  The beginning was B-O-R-I-N-G, he repeated himself over and over talking about all the different cultures in Brooklyn and how they all bring their own stories to the food we eat, and we all have our own story, and don’t let anyone tell you your story sucks, and he grew up with an awesome story, and shuuuuuuuuuuuuuut up.  Yeah, I get it.  People from China eat different food than the Norse.  MOVE ON.  Then he started talking about the history of certain foods, and I mean DETAILED history.  Like, he knows dates and places and names of rulers that most history majors don’t know, which is way cool for some people, but I had classy cider wine drinking to do, you know?  Though if I’m ever on Jeopardy and get asked what country the bagel originated in, I will leap over my podium, assault Trebek with my buzzer and yell “WHAT IS AUSTRIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  (And you thought it was Israel.)

Anywhoodles, then he moved onto to the “cooking demonstration” portion of the evening.  He was sweating “like R. Kelly at the Kids’ Choice Awards” (his words, not mine) during this entire thing and wiping his sweat on his hands up through his hair, no biggie… til he went to make spaghetti carbonara… and didn’t wash his hands.  I’m certainly not the germ police, but even I was like ew-uh.  The dish smelled insanely awesome though, and now I have a super fast and easy recipe should I ever need to make gourmet semi-Italian food in a dorm room.  Then he did a Q&A portion with the audience and then it was done.  Would I see him again?  No.  Would I recommend people go see this?  Probably not.  This might even make me a bit turned off to Man vs. Food.  I don’t know why, I just wasn’t super feeling him.  But he did refer to himself as “Jewy McJew Pants” more than once, and I laughed.

Today I’m thankful for my dear brother (who I may or may not have just accidentally ratted out to Mom that he’s hungover and now he’s gonna be all mad at me SORRY, I’ll throw myself under the bus for you sometime.)  Sorry for all those times when we were super young that I’d physically hurt you then tried to make you laugh so you’d stop crying and wouldn’t tell on me.  I was such a bitch in my elementary years.

So, off to KC I guess.  Still have a first draft due… anytime now.  Might be opening presents tomorrow, typing away in the corner.  Blllech, my tummy hurts from all the stolen treats.  T-Bone’s home now, though– at least she didn’t seem to mind me drinking milk directly from the gallon.

The chocolate curls that top our Thanksgiving pie are perhaps some of the best I’ve e’er made.  I just felt like sharing that, perhaps evidence of my freakish  passion for baking (yes, I said passion, people!  I mean business!)  Someone better bring a camera tonight before it gets devoured because the world needs to see this pie.

You’re probably wondering how today, D-day of my semester, went.  I woke at 7 a.m. and was quite certain that my eyes were bleeding.  Getting to work was auto-pilot one foot in front of the other, the ladies at work were quite concerned that I had been hit by a car en route.  My term paper ended up being ONE SENTENCE over five pages, nevermind that I increased punctuation to 14 pt font and my thesis had the word “Holocaust” in it and it concluded with the phrase “…that’s what make our democratic society great!”  IT’S. DONE. 

I owned that midterm– bent it over and made it my bitch (I will not say I “raped” it, though I’ve been known to use that phrase.  How do you think rape victims feel when we say that,  HMMMM??!?!)  I was the first person done in a lecture of well over 100 students, either a good sign or a very, very bad sign.  This happened to me all the time K-12, and I am so the person who will sit there and pretend to check my answers while waiting for someone else to get up first.  Not today.  I had to pee CRAZY bad, so could spare no time. The professor actually asked if I had a question when I handed it to him and then realized I was finished.  Either I am crazy or a genius, we will soon find out.

The very best part of all of this is that I still have shit due this week.  I will be working tomorrow after I am home, composing a first draft of a story I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about for my reporting & writing class.  Aren’t you just so jealous of me?!  Very soonly, however, I will be heading off to test my comfort zone (yeaaaaa for being an adult) and go to see Man vs. Food guy alone.  Best case scenario, he’s hotter and younger in person and picks me from the audience to be his bride and we travel the world together eating ourselves to death. 

While I’ve never read the books, I’m not completely blind, deaf, and dumb and thus not immune to the fact that New Moon opens at midnight tonight.  Two words: Taylor Lautner.  Holy sweet niblets of underage deliciousness, that kid is H-O-T hot.  Probably because he has the face of a two-year-old.  It’s learn about Brittney time: she likes them baby faces.  My laptop desktop has in fact been changed from Slash (GASP! HORROR! GLASS-SHATTERING IN THE BACKGROUND! SUICIDE!) to this 17-year-old kid that plays a werewolf for all of 36 minutes onscreen in a Twilight film (and sadly, I did not make that statistic up, Perez told me.)  And yes, I’ve caught more than just a little flack for doing so. 

Do you know what I haven’t done today?  Showered.  I’ll probably do that here soon, what with Adam Richman falling in love with me at first sight and all.  Then it’s off to 529/713 Thanksgiving (thus named because those are the addresses of the people attending, for those wondering– I am of the 713 camp OBVIOUSLY) where I’ll conveniently show up for the booze portion of the evening and skip all the turkey/mashed potatoes made by college kids shenanigans. 

Oh, so today I’m thankful for… my scholarship because I get early registration each semester for classes.  This semester it’s pretty moot since I only have to register for study abroad, BUT I get to “register” for classes that will be full by the time my-less-than-academic friends’ registration times roll around.  I’m currently enrolled in some pretty obscure art and English classes next semester (you both SO owe me now).  Really I just do it for the hilarious texts, like this one, from my least favorite 713′er: “Thank you, lady.  Your benevolence knows no bounds.”  What can I say, he adores me.

Our trip to Des Moines was a rousing success, minus not doing so well with all the one way streets, not realizing there’s a difference between 6th and East 6th, and parking near where we believed KCCI was located, but having to actually run up a hill in heels because we were nowhere close.  Running a 5K in jeans and now footraces in formalwear?  Hold your applause until the end, please

Last night’s continuation of “I don’t even know who turns 21 this weekend but I’m following a large group of people downtown under the promise of lots of pitcher” involved me getting to wear a cardboard crown from Burger King in public.  I was the Burger Queen.  The Burger Queen was pretty proud of herself that the crown made it unharmed the entire night and was still on the couch this morning.  At some point I also acquired a medium-sized stick which I used to conduct a roomful of people in a melodious rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” 

A friend and I decided this morning that toast is perhaps the most underrated food in the history of the world, so we set out in search of some.  Did we grab some bread from the kitchen and put it in the toaster?  OF COURSE NOT.  We went to a diner neither of us have ever been to and got omelettes because they came with toast (and hashbrowns!  And fruit!)  It generally did not bother me that every single other patron, mostly middle-agers or nice families, was openly staring at me.  APPARENTLY my scarecrow-esque hair and raccooned slept-in eye make-up and bright green t-shirt that’s supposed to look like doctor’s scrubs (complete with stethescope and fake blood)  provided some early morning entertainment for my fellow patrons.  That or they were just really afraid that Homeless Meth Addict Girl was going to steal their food.   I should have worn my crown.

The toast though…. wtf.  You know exactly what kind of toast I was expecting– the perfectly buttered, crunchy piece cut into triangles.  This toast was CHEWY.  Like, not crunchy.  Ch-EW-y.  There was a choice between white, wheat, rye or an English muffin.  I ordered the white– I never order the white.  Perhaps THIS TOAST is the very reason I never order white.  So disappointing.  I even tried to put some jelly on it, but to no avail.  The toast and I had to part ways.  You probably don’t need two guesses as to what I’ll be fixing myself tomorrow morning.

Continuing my thankful ’til Thanksgiving challenge, today I am thankful for… my mama because she’s currently working on the (approximately) ten loads of laundry I brought home with me.  I will be working as some sort of indentured servant tomorrow to prepare for Family Thanksgiving #1 though, so really, it all evens out.

We saw 2012 today and holy blecccchhhh.  I was hand-to-mouthing kettle corn the entire time, though, so the three hours we  spent in the theater were not in vain.  It was cliched from beginning to end– the phrase “whenever we’re together, that’s where home is” was even used.  You can tell it wanted to be Armageddon but NOTHING CAN BE so don’t even try John Cusack… don’t you even try.

I get to go make a french silk pie now.  BE JEALOUS.