Thanksgiving wrap-up

I went back to Ohio for Thanksgiving to see Val&Greg and the kiddos. We had lots of fun, lots of laughs, and, of course, lots of FOOD!

Thanksgiving dinner (we're a pretty informal family)

On Saturday, we went back to Pink Moon. Here are "The Buckeye", German chocolate and Carrot cupcakes.

And because that wasn't enough, we made Whoopie pies on Sunday night to finish off the weekend!

For his birthday, Greg got The Beatles: Rock Band, so I like to think we burned off some of those calories playing every night for a few hours.

My nephew is completely obsessed with The Beatles now. He says their names with a British accent and tries to give me a history lesson any chance he gets. "Here they are with long hair." He also has decided that he's going to be in a rock band when he grows up. It's pretty hilarious to hear a 6 year-old boy sing, "I want you, I want you so bad..." Actually, he's not supposed to do that one, but I didn't know until it was too late. I have to say, although I never really want to hear "Yellow Submarine" again, I quite enjoyed myself. (It totally beats Mario Kart, which was last year's game.) Of course, my nephew was a guitar hog, so I didn't get much of a chance to practice that, but I kind of liked the drums the best, anyway.

Now I just want to get them some Springsteen songs!

Finally, there is a name for it: Palin Derangement Syndrome.

Apparently, I have Palin Derangement Syndrome, as defined in this episode of The Daily Show (which shows a clip from some other guy from Fox "news" or something). Watch it to find out what the syndrome is (around 6:50). I'm pretty sure it's going to be in the new DSM.

More

Here are a couple of pictures I took at last week's concert. They all came out blurry, so these are the best I could do.

Movies

I have been meaning to post something about some movies I've seen lately, but haven't gotten around to it, so here goes....

1. I saw An Education while in London, and LOVED it. The coolest part is that there is a scene where the main characters go to a concert at this place in London, where I happened to be earlier in the day. But... I digress. Peter Sarsgaard is one of my favorite actors, and he was so good in this movie because he plays the role perfectly. Between this movie and Mad Men, I am so in love with the 60's fashions, but it does feel better to be a woman in the 00's. Although it takes place in the 60's, there are so many things that feel timely about this young woman's story.

2. You might have heard of a little movie called This is It starring a little performer named Michael Jackson.... I thought I'd enjoy this movie, but I liked it even more than I thought I would. It is easy to forget how great these songs were/are when his music has been out of the spotlight for a long time, but hearing it all again was fantastic. And the dancing? Amazing! There was a point where I was thinking, "Okay, we get it." And then all of a sudden, he goes into Billie Jean and I wanted it to keep on going.

3. Precious. This is getting tons of press and it is well deserved. I read the book and thought it was an okay book, but the movie really takes the story to a new level. Yes, these girls could be my clients. The only negative thing I could say is that I was with the most annoying audience. Not to give anything away, but there is a part of the movie where the main character, Precious, is smiling. The woman next to me is saying, out loud, "See? she's happy now. I can tell by her face. She's happy." I wanted to tear my hair out!!! Some people will say, "You only like depressing movies." It's pretty much true, but there are plenty of bright spots in this one.

Now is the time when all the best movies are coming out. Have you seen anything good lately??

A little something I whipped up this week

Visitors

Jill came to town for the Springsteen concert, and as we were planning what we were going to do before the show, she asked, "Have you heard of Crumbs?" Apparently someone that Chris knows told them about it. Even though they are not my favorite cupcakes, I took them anyway. And you know what? They were deee-lish!

This was soon after the World Series, so they had these "Let's go Yankees" cupcakes.

The Return

All my Springsteen shows are over. Now it's Mayer season and I went to two shows this past week. Tickets are on sale right now. I totally recommend you get some! (I'll be going to 6 shows total.)

I didn't get to see JM play on Letterman this time around because they taped early in the day. I consoled myself because I was able to go to this show. You might see me and Kathy among the crowd off to the left for a second while he's walking into the studio (around 1:02). Yes, I almost fainted.

Here's the performance that I didn't go to. Although I don't like this new song very much, I think the live version is actually pretty good.