I hope you are getting a chance to share with the people in your life that you are thankful for on this day.
In that spirit, here’s one of the best Thanksgiving themes ever written…
Month: November 2023
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Last Day of Work Before Vacation
There are a couple of things that I miss about working. I was lucky enough to have a couple of office experiences with some really great people, so to camaraderie of working with stealer people is one thing I miss. The other was working on a day before vacation starts. It was such a wasted day, and also a day that felt the closest to what the last day of school was like. (And for that matter, the feeling of the last day of school is the greatest feeling that I wish desperately that I could experience again… but alas… that is a story for another blog.) Sitting in an office, talking to co-workers about the pending holiday that we would all be off for, and just watching the minutes tick by was such a slow burn of boredom and anticipation wrapped in one. I don’t think I spilling the beans on the fact that in an office, no one, and I mean no one, works on the last day before vacation.
There were so many times in the office, before Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or 4th of July, when we would spend the whole day just taking, swapping stories about families, and crazy things uncles and aunts would do after a bourbon or two. Bad Christmas gifts from siblings was a popular topic as well. A few times, I think before Christmas vacation, the office would head out to a bar and hang out for a couple drinks. Christmas lights and martini’s is a state of mind during the Holiday Season.
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ODDS and ENDS: Yippie Dog, The Week of Black Friday, and a Movie Marathon
(But I wanted a torta…)
We have a new neighbor in our building, and they moved into the “Bermuda Triangle” apartment. That’s the unit no one stays very long in, maybe six months – tops. Anyway, they moved in, and I have only seen the person once. They seemed friendly and we exchanged pleasantries. But they brought something else with them; a little yippie dog. Oh, how that little dog likes to bark its yippie little bark. Day, night, walking by their door, and sneezing too loud. Yip! Yip! Yip! At first my dog was annoyed at the yipping, but of late, she seems to have resigned herself to ignoring it. We can block it out, and it’s more of a novelty of an annoyance than an actual annoying thing. Yet, I still have to wonder what it’s like in that apartment, as that dog yips and yips and yips day and night. Yip!
So… “Black Friday” is a week-long thing now. When did that happen? I don’t really care that there is now a week of shopping deals – whatever needs to happen to sell TVs is fine. It’s the use of “Black Friday” to represent an entire week, and in some commercials, the whole month. It feels like this is the first year of the week- and month-long Black Friday title’s use, but I can also see retailers gaslighting me, saying that it’s always been like this. And I should be shopping more. Do I need a new TV? I should get a new TV.
As we are closing in on Thanksgiving, and I am a huge MST3k fan, this would be the time to start thinking about watching a marathon of awful movies while on vacation. Sadly, I don’t think I can get the wife and kid on board to watch a bunch of old Joel episodes, let alone actually look for some bad movies in general. (Maybe Rob Hill over at Bad Movie Bible should put out a list of suggestion awful movies to marathon through for Thanksgiving?) No, I think if I want to make this happen, I have to actually be rather creative in my movie selection. We have done all the Star Wars movies, and Harry Potter, and even did all the Marvel movies once upon a Covid. I think I might have to sub-genera it, like all the Spiderman movies. Or, maybe all the different versions of Fantastic Four? Or all the Marvel films? How about Bill Murray movies he later regretted making? Or Gene Hackman “paycheck” movies? This could be fun, come to think of it.
