Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving!

I volunteered myself to host Thanksgiving for my parents and sweetheart this year. This is the first time I've hosted Thanksgiving, and while I'm a bit freaked out, I think I'll be OK. :)

Did I mention I don't have an oven?

I do, on the other hand, have a very nice Weber Q 220 that I think will work for all the "oven like" things I'll be doing.

I'm going to make:
Dinner Rolls - I'm going to borrow liberally from the Taste of Home Garlic Herb Rolls recipe. I really don't need 20 dinner rolls. :)
Turkey (I found an 8lb free range one that was quite a dear price at Whole Foods - it should fit in the grill) - I'm going to be inspired by Alton Brown's recipe, but omit the brine because I don't have a pan big enough to brine the turkey in. Let's hope butter under the skin will do the trick. I found a neat grilled turkey article here.
Stuffing - A bag of Pepperidge Farm's herb seasoned stuffing made Mrs. Cubbison's style. Saute the celery and onions with the giblets for the best results. I haven't decided if this will go in a dish on the grill or if I'll just make it on the stovetop.
Roasted Acorn Squash - sprinkled with cinnamon
either steamed green beans or steamed asparagus (I found asparagus on sale that looked kind of nice, so I think that will be the winner)
Pumpkin Pie - using the recipe on the can of pumpkin and a pie crust made with an egg.

I finally found kitchen twine at Ralph's. It seems like one of those things that should be ubiquitous to the kitchen, but I honestly don't think many stores carry it. If they do it's not in a good location. I almost bought "turkey lacers" and steal the twine from that until I spotted the real thing.

Facebook "Friends" Criteria

I have some weird criteria when it comes to "friends" on Facebook. Does this make me snobbish or weird?

If you are genuinely my "friend", you can be my friend on Facebook.
If you are in my familiy, you can be my friend on Facebook.
If we work together, you can possibly be my friend on Facebook.
If you are someone I met randomly and we hit it off, you can be my friend on Facebook.
If you are someone I went to school with, and we maintain in some sort of contact (via Facebook or e-mail, or phone, or IM), you can be my friend on Facebook.

If I only vaguely think your name is familiar, and we went to high school together, I have to wonder why the hell you want to be my "friend" on Facebook. Is it because you genuinely want to know what I've been up to since May 2001? If I say that you're my friend, you're never going to write on my wall or e-mail me, so what's the point? I don't necessarily have any ill feelings towards you, but I just don't think you have a need to know about what's going on in my life if I can barely remember your name and don't remember what you look like. If we went to high school together and you're married with kids, chances are as soon as you see my full profile you will write me off as persona non grata anyway. What are you going to get out of being my friend other than the privilege to nose around my photos?

If you're from college and we took some classes together, I don't mind being your Facebook friend. But honestly, I possibly don't remember you either unless I immediately write on your wall something about how it's been so long. Sorry. Names from people in college are even more elusive to me than names from high school. Isn't that weird?

However, if you're a professor I took a class from I'd love to have you as a Facebook friend.

The Mormon Proposition

Here is my pro-gay-rights rant for the day. Every time I hear about Proposition 8, I get upset. Even though the vote was over a year ago.

I'm not gay, but I do have gay friends. And the gay people I know are some of the nicest people I know, period.

I honestly don't care who people marry, as long as it doesn't involve abuse of any kind. Want to marry someone of your same sex? Fine by me. Want to marry 2 or 3 or 10 other people? Go right ahead, as long as everyone else involved is genuinely happy with the arrangement. Why limit the crapshoot that is marriage to just straight, theoretically monogamous people?

I really want all marriages in this country to be reduced to civil unions performed at the courthouse for everybody. Then if you are religious you can have your white wedding at the church with your pastor/priest/bishop/flying spaghetti monster presiding. It's not taking away from anyone's marriage, just separating the concepts of marriage recognized by the state and marriage recognized by your flavor of deity worship.

I don't even care what religion you are. I know a lot of atheists, a lot of Catholics, more than a few Mormons. I know some Hindu and Buddhist people too. You want to go practice your religion in any way you see fit, go right ahead. But don't hurt other people in the process. If you believe magic underwear will save you, wear it. Wear two pairs, on top of each other, if you think it will help God recognize you as one of the Chosen Ones. If you believe you need to face Mecca every morning and pray, do it. Get audited too, if you need it. Don't celebrate birthdays either if you believe that will keep you from reaching Paradise. Go right on thinking there are monsters in the bathtub if that helps you out spiritually.

Just don't hurt other people. Not physically, not mentally, not emotionally, and certainly not sexually. Just don't do it. It is in complete and absolute conflict with 'civilized' life. If your religion does things to harm other people or interfere negatively in other people's lives, your religion deserves to lose its tax-exempt status, or get rightfully smeared in documentaries or the media. That just seems fair and karmic to me.

My dad taught me to treat other people the way I would want to be treated. I've gotten shit on quite a bit because of that well-ingrained philosophy. But I still believe there is a grain of truth in it.

If I found myself in a position of being emotionally and financially ready, and in a relationship with a man who I liked enough to get married to, and he liked me enough to get married to me, I'd like to feel free to get married if we so chose to do. Denying that same choice to homosexual people is hypocritical and selfish.

Watching those old geezers smile and say that it would be "better to be dead than be homosexual" gets the Aries in me all upset. What the hell people. I'd really like to know where they get off on saying something like that.

I get really pissed off when people say sexuality is a choice. It's not. It's a continuum. To think that it's a binary decision where you just say, "Oh, I must be [blank] today" is stupid.

And to be persecuted for something you cannot change about yourself, that just sucks. You think homosexuals and bisexuals WANT to be treated poorly by their societies? Who in their right mind would CHOOSE that?

OK. I'm done for today.

Rolling My Eyes

Mormons throw support behind gay-rights cause

I thought that it was already illegal to discriminate against homosexual people in housing and employment. . . .talk about being over a year late and many millions of dollars short. . . .

IKEA Experience

I've been thinking about getting bar stools for my studio apartment's counter for a long time, and now I have the pressing incentive to actually do it: I'm hosting my parents and my boyfriend for Thanksgiving dinner. I've had my parents over at my place for Thanksgiving before, but I feel this is the first time I'm actually "hosting" dinner. I guess I need to get "civilized" and get some damn bar stools. At least after Thanksgiving I can host happy hour, whenever I'm home on a Friday night and want to kick it with some colleagues.

Have you ever noticed that "Happy Hour" is full of sad, depressing saps? Maybe I don't want to be introducing that into my personal space.

So to dip my toe in the water, my boyfriend took me to IKEA this weekend and we wandered around. Wow. I didn't get anything, but it was a fun experience. We almost had a moment similar to the one in (500) Days of Summer, where Joesph Gordon-Leavitt and Zooey Deschanel have a date in IKEA, start making out in one of the display bedrooms, and one of them says to the other, "We have a Chinese family in our bathroom." We walked into a kitchen display and looked into the adjacent living room display, where several people had made themselves at home on the couch.

Have you noticed how *slow* people move through IKEA? Talk about sheeple. There's even the dude or dude-ette who is wide enough for two people and somehow always manages to walk into your path, no matter how you try to get around him/her. The single path is WIDE, and yet shoppers manage to congest the whole flow of traffic.

Tonight I drove down to the IKEA nearest me to obtain the bar stools that will provide dinner seating for four in my little studio. I found some online that would suffice, for half of what other barstools would cost me. The store near me had some in stock, and I thought it would be a neat adventure to navigate IKEA on my own.

Well, I managed to completely irritate several IKEA employees tonight. The bar stools I wanted were not in the self-pick-up area, and I had to figure out how the whole "full pick-up" process worked by consulting an employee each step of the way. I was obviously not one of the IKEA-converted glassy-eyed zombies that roam the aisles. But I successfully obtained the stools, and was so flummoxed that I totally forgot to get a jar of lingonberry jam, frozen potato pancakes, and frozen Swedish meatballs for Scandinavian convenience food experimentation. (That sounds so naughty!)

Ah well. I suppose that will all wait for next time. I spied $5.00 8x10 frames with included mats that will work well for my travel photos that have been begging to be framed for the past 9 months or so. . . . .

Women Are Tough Too, You Know

Associated Press: Civilian officer shot gunman, ended rampage

What the hell Lt. General Cone? Women are just as capable as men, and you're just figuring this out?

Love, Lay Your Head On My Weary Shoulder

I once saw Spencer Day live in Hollywood. Nice guy.

He just released a CD, and was on the Craig Ferguson show in September. I missed seeing him in Redondo Beach last weekend. Maybe next time.

Anyway, I remember this song from his show. It's a lot more polished now, and still quite lovely.



And now I want a hug.

Women in Space

Right Stuff, Wrong Sex

This makes me want to simultaneously roll my eyes and shake my fist in anger.

Of course they weren't going to put women in space. Because we're all weak and stuff. Can't handle the stress.

I remember a Navy recruiter who once tried to recruit at my high school. He told me that women weren't allowed on submarines because they couldn't take the physical and psychological stress.

An aside: the other night I was a passenger on a flight and I saw the cities below encrusted in lights. I thought they looked just like photos of nebulas sent back from Hubble.